A Second Life
by branson101
Summary: What would you do if the man by your side is no longer the man you fell in love with. What if that man had died months ago, he just didn't know it. When your life is at a crossroads which way do you turn? will be E/B eventually.
1. Chapter 1

ASL Chapter 1

Rain, Rain Go Away!

It was raining again. The constant rain was the only part of living in Seattle that I hated. There was nothing else about my life that I didn't love. I had a wonderful, adoring husband who, finally done with his residency, had joined his father's private practice just as we had planned. Our son Ethan was going to start preschool in the fall and it would be perfect timing, too. School would start right before the new baby was due. We had been trying to get pregnant for six months with no luck until now. I still had not told Edward. I was waiting until we were alone tonight.

Ethan had been a complete surprise, but a welcome one even though being pregnant while Edward was in his last year of medical school and had three years residency terrified me. He was so happy when I told him. He had arranged for his parents, Esme and Carlisle, to be there for me as much as they could when he couldn't be there. They even insisted that we come to stay with them for the last month of my pregnancy and for the first month or so after he was born so I wouldn't be alone. My in-laws were the absolute best. Tonight was my Edward's 29th birthday. He wanted to keep it low-key and have it be just the family. Rose was bringing the cake but Esme and I were doing the dinner. He promised me that next year he'd let me throw him a huge bash for his 30th birthday.

I continued to move through house cleaning as I went. Our house wasn't messy, but you could definitely tell that a three-year-old lived here. I made my way to the kitchen; Ethan would be up soon and would want his lunch. I adored being a stay-at-home mom and being there to care for our son, and I would be there for our newest edition. I was planning to tell Edward after everyone left tonight and we were alone.

The phone ringing interrupted my internal musings. I smiled when I looked at the caller ID. Edward. "Hello sweetheart."

"Hey love, I was just about to take my lunch and wanted to see if you needed me to pick up anything for tonight so you don't have to drag Ethan out in the rain?"

"No, I'm all set. Having a good day?"

"Pretty good, but it'll be better when I get to come home to you and Ethan tonight."

"And our family."

"And our family. Is Mom coming over to help you cook?"

"Yes. Oh that reminds me. You're supposed to follow your Dad home and drive him here so that they only have the one car."

"Ok. I can do that. I"d better go grab something to eat. I love you."

"I love you too. Always." Then he hung up and was gone.

I had just finished putting the sandwiches and fruit on the plate when Ethan came padding into the kitchen and wrapped himself around my legs. I handed him his sippy cup of milk and he walked over to the table and struggled to crawl up into his booster chair. He was going through this "I can do it myself" phase that I now found absolutely adorable. Even if I did cry my eyes out the first time my baby told me he didn't need my help.

As I watched my baby eat his lunch, I could help but be amazed at how much he was like his father. He not only inherited his father's hair and beautiful green eyes but his mannerisms as well. They were both calm people. Ethan rarely ever cried as a baby, unless you counted that horrible period where he suffered from colic as an infant. That was a heartbreaking time for me as well.

After Ethan and I were done eating our lunch and were cleaned up, he and I started making Edward's birthday dinner together. I gave him the lettuce and a bowl and showed him how to tear the lettuce in small bits. That should keep him occupied for awhile. He loved to help me cook even if he couldn't do much. I was working on mixing the dough for the rolls when I heard the front door open and Esme call out to me. I yelled to her that we were in the kitchen and waited for her to join us. She came with her arms full of gifts for Edward and a couple for Ethan. Edward may be a 29-years-old doctor who was married and a father, but he would always be her baby boy. He was her first-born baby, too. Ever since Ethan came into my life, I find that I completely understand that.

Esme grabbed some vegetables and the cutting board and went to help Ethan make our salad for dinner; I set the dough to rise and started working on the main course, Lasagna. I'd been simmering the pot of homemade sauce most of the morning. By the time I had the sausage/hamburger mix cooked Esme had moved onto the parmesan garlic butter mixture that we would brush on top of the rolls. I looked over and stifled a laugh at my son who was trying to toss the salad with the tongs like Grandma did. He nearly upended the bowl before I went over to stop him. I gave him some paper and crayons and told him to color Daddy some birthday pictures we could use to decorate the walls.

Esme and I talked about our plans for the upcoming summer. She and Carlisle were taking the cruise around Greece and Italy that she had always wanted to go on. I told her that Edward and I had decided on a beach house in South Carolina for a couple of weeks. Then we talked about how I really felt about Ethan starting school in the fall. She already knew that I wasn't going to go back to work. I loved being a stay-at-home mom and Edward preferred that I stay at home like his mother had. I didn't have to work so why add that stress on the family. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Stepford wife or anything like that. Most afternoons I spend sitting on the couch watching TV while Ethan and his cousin Kara, who I watch while her parents worked, ran around and played with their toys. There are many days that the house looks like a tornado hit it and days I just don't care.

After the Lasagna and rolls were ready and waiting to go into the oven, we moved onto decorating the house for the party. We were about halfway done hanging the streamers when Alice and Jasper showed up with their daughter Kara. Kara was just about the same age as Ethan, only three weeks older, and they were best friends. Alice was currently pregnant with their second child, this time a boy they were naming Aiden. She was nine months along and looked ready to pop at any moment.

It was right after Alice announced that she was pregnant that Edward told me he wanted us to have another baby also. It didn't take much for him to convince me that it was a great time to start trying. Edward and I had always talked about having a large family. Ethan was already three and if we waited any longer the age gap between him and his siblings would be huge, and neither of us wanted that.

The only concern was my mood swings I had when I was pregnant with Ethan. Nearly every day, I got angry at something that Edward had said to me and he ended up wearing his dinner as I stormed off. I was not the happiest pregnant woman. I was so uncomfortable but Ethan was worth all of it; he was an exact replica of his father in every way.

Alice, on the other hand, was amazing when she was pregnant. She glowed, she smiled, and where I looked like and felt like a troll for nine months, she looked like a goddess. She came into the living room and dropped into a chair. She also looked like she was ready to fall asleep at any moment. "Alice, are you ok?"

"I'm fine. I'm just tired because he was moving all night and I didn't get much sleep."

"I told her that we should have stayed at home. Edward would have understood." Jasper hastily added.

"Of course he'd understand but I'm here now and I'm staying."

"Alice, is the baby moving around right now?" I inquired.

"No. he's finally resting."

"Then why don't you go upstairs to our room and lie down for a bit, maybe get a nap in?"

"That's sound like a great idea. I think I will." Jasper rushed to her side to help her as she attempted to stand up.

The afternoon went by quickly after that. We had just finished the decorating when Rose and Emmett showed up with the cake. Rose was Edward's youngest sister. She and Emmett had only been married for a few months. They met at university when they both took the same English class. Emmett came from some small town a few hours away from here called Forks.

Jasper went upstairs to wake Alice right before Edward and his father were due to arrive. I had wine chilling in the fridge for those that wanted it. I didn't have to worry anyone wondering why I wasn't drinking as I very rarely drank. I just didn't like the taste of alcohol.

I was in the kitchen opening a bottle of the wine to let it breathe when I heard Edward come home. I couldn't help that automatic smile that always donned my face when my husband walked through the door.

"Hey there, beautiful! Love of my life, I missed you today," he said as he entered the room. I turned to greet him and found him holding out a bouquet of roses and a box of my favorite candy.

"It's your birthday! You're supposed to be getting the gifts not giving them."

"I know. But you always were the best gift that I ever received. As long as I have you, I'll never want anything else."

"You really are a dork. But I love you anyway."

"I love you too." Then he wrapped his arms around my waist and said, "Besides, you can't blame a guy for buttering up his wife in hopes that he'll get to unwrap her later when they're finally alone."

"There's a good possibility that could happen. Happy Birthday my love."

"Thank you," he replied with a kiss that was cut too short by a squeal of "Daddy!" from the doorway.

Our family dinners were always such boisterous affairs. Alice and I were talking about the baby and the newest outfits that she had bought for him, while Edward and Esme laughed at Emmett and Jasper acting like fools to keep the kids entertained. After dinner was done and the table cleared, we went back to the living room to talk and relax until it was time for cake. We gave the kids each half of a piece since it was getting late and close to their bedtime. The last thing that any of us wanted to deal with was a hyperactive child on a sugar high that wouldn't go to sleep.

Edward was about to open his presents when Alice got up to take her plate into the kitchen. Jasper tried to stop her, saying that he'd do it for her, but she said that she had to pee again anyway. She barely got through the kitchen door when we heard the sound of glass shattering. We ran to find her doubled over in the doorway clutching her stomach.

"I'm having a contraction." She gritted out through her teeth.

"How far apart are they?" Edward, Carlisle, and Jasper all asked simultaneously.

"How the hell should I know? That was only the first one," she snapped at them. Ok. Maybe she wasn't a goddess all the time when she was pregnant.

Jasper and Esme helped her to the bathroom while Edward and I took the kids upstairs to clean them up and get them ready for bed. Alice had asked us to keep Kara for them when she went to the hospital and had luckily brought over a bag of clothes and necessities for Kara last week. She said she didn't want to have to worry about remembering that along with her own bag when the time came.

By the time we finally got the two children in bed and made it back downstairs only Rose and Emmett remained. We found them in the kitchen washing the dishes that had been accumulating all night. "They left for the hospital. You guys go on ahead; we'll stay here with Ethan and Kara," Rose offered.

Rose barely got the offer out of her mouth before we took off running out the door. We forgot all about the presents that were on the card table in the living room. Or that special gift that was upstairs on our nightstand that Edward was supposed to open later that night when we were alone.

When we arrived at the hospital we joined Carlisle and Esme in the waiting room. At about eleven, Jasper came out to give us an update. She was still at about four and a half centimeters and it was going to be a few hours before she delivered. None of us were about to go home though, so Esme started a fresh pot of coffee and I scoured the magazine rack looking for something half decent. By one o'clock I was lying on a sofa with my head on Edward's lap with him stroking my hair. It wasn't long after that that I fell asleep.

"Sweetheart? Wake up. Aiden's here." I sat up rubbing my eyes.

"What time is it?"

"It's five in the morning."

"Did you get any sleep?"

"No. I'll be fine. Luckily, I'm still used to resident's hours."

"How are they?"

"They are fine. They had to take Aiden out by C-Section though."

"Why?"

"Apparently my nephew has a really big head," Edward laughed.

Edward helped me up off the sofa I was lying on and we made our way down the hall to join the rest of the family in Alice's room. Aiden was so gorgeous! He had Jaspers blonde hair and Alice's nose. I had missed holding a little baby in my arms so much. I was very excited to tell Edward our news, but not right now. He looked so tired. I was about to ask him to cancel his appointments and stay home when Carlisle spoke up.

"Son, I'm dead on my feet. Think you can manage the morning and I'll come in later this afternoon and let you go home early to get some sleep."

"I'm fine, old man. Take the whole day off and spend it with Mom. Get used to semi-retirement."

"I'm going to take you up on that. And watch who you're calling old! I'm still your father and your boss."

"Yes, sir" Edward replied with a laugh. We spent another hour there before heading home. As soon as we got there Edward ran upstairs to shower and change while I went to the kitchen to start some breakfast and coffee for Edward. I made him a breakfast sandwich and a bowl of fruit he could take with him and had Rose rummage through the cabinets to find the thermos that I knew we had, but never used. Rose and Emmett left shortly after Edward did to head home to change before heading up to the hospital to meet their nephew.

I spent the day at home playing with the kids. Unfortunately, I slipped in the kitchen and spilled what little bit of milk we had left in the house. I decided that, even though he was exhausted, it would be easier for Edward to stop at the store for milk than for me to drag the two children out for only that one item. So, reluctantly I called him to ask for the favor. He kept assuring me that he would be fine and had caught his second wind.

By dinnertime, it was pouring rain and Edward wasn't home yet. The children were happily eating their supper with juice to drink instead of the milk that Edward was supposed to bring home. I was standing at the window watching the rain and the empty driveway waiting for him to pull in. He was an hour late and wasn't picking up his cell phone. I had turned to answer a question that Kara had asked me when I heard a car pull up and let out a sigh of relief. But that relief was short lived when I turned as the kitchen door opened and it was Emmett and Rose standing there instead of my husband.

"Tanya, Edward has been in an accident."

Then everything went black.

A/N:

I got you, didn't I? Hee hee hee. Take a deep breath, relax, and trust me! I have a plan. Tanya's are always so evil and horrible in fics and so much fun to hate that I wanted to try my hand at writing another good one! This WILL be an E/B fic. It will come. And no, Edward will not be having an affair. Thank you to Sweetpea123 for beating this for me. Enjoy! I am off to lunch and the art gallery where my son has one of his photographs displayed.


	2. Chapter 2

ASL Chapter 2

Changes Are Coming

EPOV:

I still remember the first time I ever laid eyes on her. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I had never been attracted to a blonde before, I had always dated brunettes. It was my first semester at college and we were in the same History class. I couldn't help but sit next to her and by the end of the class I had her number. By that night, I had called her and we had a date planned for that Saturday evening. I took her out to dinner and then for a walk on the pier before taking her back to her dorm. She was an education major. That one date was all it took for me. I knew I was in love with her that night.

I took her home with me over Thanksgiving to introduce her to my parents, my brother, and sister. They fell in love with her immediately, too. My mom said she had such a kind heart and soul. We flew up to Alaska for Spring Break so that I could meet her family. I must say that I was charming enough that I made a great impression on her family, including her father.

No one was surprised when we decided to get an apartment together off campus that summer. That first night in our first home together was the first time we made love, to each other or to anyone at all. It was one of the five best nights of my life. The others being the obvious, when I proposed, our wedding day, the day she told me she was pregnant, and the day our son was born.

Tanya and Ethan are my entire life. I am so glad that I am finished with my residency and was in my private practice. I was loving being able to leave the office every day at 5 PM. I no longer had to work late nights and all-night shifts. I no longer had to miss putting my son to bed. I would no longer be just climbing into bed as my wife woke up for the day.

We had been trying to get pregnant again for months with no luck so far. I had been thinking about suggesting we stop for a bit and relax on it. I hated seeing the disappointment in Tanya's eyes every month when her period came. Then I noticed a change in My Tanya. I knew that Alice's pregnancy was difficult for her to deal with, but she never let it show. At least she didn't think that I saw. I was more in tune with her than I think she realized. I was going to suggest soon that she take a test. I was almost positive this time it would be good news.

I was however a bit disappointed that Alice took so long delivering my nephew. I got very excited when she started having contractions at my birthday dinner. I was really hoping that Aiden and I would be able to share a birthday. But my sister, being the procrastinator that she is, didn't deliver until about 4:30 in the morning the day _after_ my birthday.

After visiting my sister and holding my nephew, I took Tanya home, and then went on to the office. I had a full day of patients ahead of me, seeing as Dad stayed home to rest and he despised having to cancel appointments on his patients. He would go on about how most of them were from households where both parents worked outside of the home and found it difficult to find the time to get off work for one appointment, let alone having to reschedule. It was one reason that I wanted Tanya to remain a stay at home mom. Besides, she was happy with her life and so was I, so why change things now.

I ended up never getting a break in my day at all. I had one of the nurses bring me back a sandwich that I kept in my office and would sneak in for bites between patients. But the mug of coffee rarely left my hand. Even with that, contrary to what I told my wife, I was dead on my feet. I just wanted to get home and crawl into bed. First, I had to stop at the store to pick up some milk for the kids.

I was in my car on the interstate making my way home with the radio turned up high, in an attempt to stay awake, but I was dozing off. I knew that I just needed to stay awake for another twenty minutes then I could sleep. I knew my eyes were drooping when I vaguely heard the crunching of metal as everything went dark.

TanyaPOV:

I couldn't believe that I was back to sitting in a hospital waiting room. This time it was entirely my fault. I should never have asked him to stop for the milk. It wouldn't have been that difficult for me to take both kids to the store. I had a moment of laziness and it may have cost my husband his life. Carlisle was blaming himself too. If only….if only…if only….I could go on for days with the "if only's". I just wanted…no I needed my husband to be all right.

The doctor came out after leaving us sitting there for three hours and updated us on Edward's condition. He had a broken left arm and right leg, and a skull fracture. They had needed to operate to remove his spleen but what they were really concerned about was the swelling in his brain. It was a lucky thing that he was wearing his seat belt, because when the car rolled he would have been ejected. He was also lucky that he didn't hit anyone else. He had hit the guardrail at an angle so that the car flipped over it and rolled down the embankment and into a tree. Witnesses said that he'd been driving erratically moments before he lost control and were concerned that he'd been drinking. We assured the officer that wasn't the case, that he was just too tired. I consented for them to do a blood alcohol level test on him to prove Edward was not driving under the influence.

The doctor told us that he'd placed Edward into a medically induced coma and would be keeping him like that for the near future. The good news was that although he was in stable condition, he would be staying in the ICU for a while. Emmett and Rose offered to take the kids home after they took Kara over to the maternity ward see her parents and Aiden. We had yet to tell Alice and Jasper about Edward's accident. We wanted to wait until he came out of surgery and we had an update before we upset Alice. She just had surgery and needed to rest.

With a big kiss and a hug, I sent my son off home for bed. Carlisle went with Emmett, Rose, and the kids so that he could assure Alice and Jasper that as a doctor he really believed that Edward was going to be just fine. Esme and I sat alone together in the quiet waiting room letting the silence surround us until the nurse came back to take us up to the ICU to see him. Esme and I held hands the whole walk there as the nurse tried to explain to us and warn us what to expect. I was so close to losing it. I was hanging on by a thread and needed something to focus on to keep me moving forward. I kept my eyes trained on the back of the nurse's shoes as she walked in front of us and with each step she took I let her pull me forward.

He had a lot of bruises and a ventilator to help him breathe, and they had needed to shave part of his head due to the head injury. Esme walked into the room first and I heard her sobbing gasp before I slowly lifted my eyes and took in my broken husband. I walked slowly over to him as if any sudden movement on my part would scare or startle him. I reached his side and placed one of my hands against his face, while taking his hand in my other hand. I leaned down and kissed his forehead. I was the one that startled when I heard a scraping noise behind me and looked up to see that the nurse had brought a chair over for me to sit in. She gave me a sad smile and reminded us that there could only be two people in the room with him at a time.

I started telling Edward how much I loved him and needed him and so did Ethan. It was about a half an hour later when Esme touched my arm and told me that she was going to step out to the waiting room and let Carlisle come in for a while. Moments later Carlisle put his hand on my shoulder and crouched in front of me, assuring me that he was positive that Edward was going to be just fine. He'd looked at Edward's chart and it all looked good. I just nodded.

He left a few minutes later telling me that he was going to lie down on one of the couches in the waiting room if I should need him, but he was going to send Esme back in to sit with me. I fell asleep with my head resting on Edward's arm only to be woken a couple of hours later by a sharp pain in my stomach. Esme was fast asleep in a chair at the foot of the bed. I got up and quietly slipped into the bathroom. When I found blood in my underwear, I started to panic. I slipped out of the room and made my way back to the waiting room to find my father in law.

"Carlisle. Carlisle! Wake up, please! I need your help!"

"Wha…Edward…is he…?"

"No, no, no, it's not Edward, Carlisle, it's me. There's something wrong and I need your help."

"What's wrong, Sweetie?"

"I'm pregnant and now I'm cramping and spotting."

"Shit. Let's go down to the ER and get you looked at." He grabbed a wheel chair, insisting that I had to get off my feet. We made it down to the ER and found a doctor to examine me.

A couple of hours and many tests later the doctor came in with an answer, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Cullen. I'm afraid you miscarried." Then I broke down sobbing in my father-in-laws arms. Why? Why were so many bad things happening to us now?

The doctor left us alone at Carlisle's insistence. "Does Edward know, Tanya?"

"No. I was going to tell him last night but then Alice went into labor and we didn't get home till this morning. Then he had to go to work and then the accident," I choked out through the sobs. "Don't tell anyone Carlisle. This is only going to hurt him if he finds out."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Why bring him more pain. This can be our little secret, right?"

"If that is what you really want, then yes, we can keep this between the three of us. I won't keep this from Esme. But I do understand you wanting to keep it from Edward right now. It might impede his recovery, but I want you to agree to think about telling him in the future."

"Yes, I will tell him at some point. Just not now."

"We'd better get back upstairs."

When I got back up to Edward's room Esme was awake and looked worried. "Oh, dear, I was wondering where you were."

"I had to deal with something. Carlisle needs to talk to you." She kissed my temple before leaving the room. When she came back fifteen minutes later, she had tears streaming down her face.

"Oh my dear, I am so sorry. I…I…I…"

"Shh, Esme. Please. Not in here. Not now." That was all that was said as we held each other the rest of the night. Rose woke me up at about eight to tell me that Ethan was in the waiting room with Carlisle and Esme and suggested that I go have breakfast with them while Emmett and Rose sat with Edward. I took her up on her suggestion and told her that I should probably run home for a few things too and get a shower. She pointed at a bag sitting by the door.

"We figured that you wouldn't want to leave, so we brought a few necessities." I left my husband in the capable hands of my sister in law and went to find my son.

The next three weeks crept by slowly. I tried splitting my time between trying to be at the hospital and trying to be at home with Ethan. I didn't want him to have to be at the hospital any more than necessary but he kept crying that he missed his daddy. Yet he couldn't understand at that age why daddy was sleeping so long, and would cry when daddy wouldn't wake up to play with him.

One day, about a week after the accident, I came home around lunchtime after having left Ethan alone with Emmett for the whole morning.

"Tanya, I need to tell you something." That was not the way that I wanted to be greeted by my brother in law as I walked in the door.

"What's wrong? Where's Ethan? Is he alright?" I knew that they were headed to the mall to buy Rose a birthday gift.

"No. He's fine. Just fine. Well, he's really fucking ecstatic at the moment. Which brings me back to-"

"Mommy! Guess what Unca Em boughts me! I gots a pet!"

"You bought him a _PET_!"

"Now don't get excited, you don't even know what it is yet."

"I don't have time to take care of a pet. I have a husband in the ICU and a three year old and now I have to train and care for a pet. Great!" I was seriously going to beat him.

"Wait now. This pet doesn't require much attention and there is no training needed."

I was just about to ask what kind of pet needed no attention or training when Ethan grabbed my hand. "Come wif me mama!" and he pulled me into the living room behind him. What I saw on the coffee table made me burst out in laughter for the first time since that horrid night. There was a small bowl with a goldfish in it.

"You got a goldfish, baby?"

"Yip, his names Jacob."

"Jacob?"

"Yip"

"I know I should have talked to you first, but it made him smile. I thought it would be a good distraction for him."

"It's was a brilliant idea, Emmett. Thank you."

"You're welcome, sis."

"Did you find a gift for Rose?"

"Yip"

"Now I know where my son is getting that. What did you get her?"

"Furniture."

"What?" I spun around to look at him stunned.

"The real estate people called. We got the house we wanted, the one that Rose called her "dream home'." I gave him a big hug.

"I am so happy for the two of you," I cried. He left a few minutes later to go home, pick up Rose, and take her out to celebrate. After I put Ethan down for his nap, I went to my room and cried; I cried out of anger and frustration. Why? I questioned. Why was everything going so wrong for me and so right for everyone else? Why did Alice and Rose both get their dreams while mine died? How had my life fallen apart so bad, so fast?

A/N:

Do you like how I got Jacob in there? How do you feel about Tanya? Thanks again to Sweetpea123 for betaing this for me. She is getting chapter 3 today so I should be able to post it for you guys next Saturday. Reviews will get a teaser of that chapter. Thank you for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

ASL Chapter 3

Memories

Tanya POV:

Another three weeks passed before the doctors would even consider weaning Edward off the medication that was keeping him asleep. The swelling in his brain had gone down and they moved him from the ICU, but he still had the ventilator attached to him to help his breathing. Even after he woke up he was going to be in the hospital for a while and when they did finally allow him to come home, he was going to need a lot of help. Someone was going to need to stay with him and help him until all of his injuries healed.

Alice had long since been released from the hospital and preparing to go back to work in a few short weeks. The plan had been for me to watch Aiden along with Kara, but now Alice was looking into a daycare for the kids. She was trying to convince me that even she believed it was only a temporary solution, but I think we all knew that I was never going to watch her kids every day anytime soon. I rationalized it, as it was probably better that I didn't watch a newborn baby so soon after losing mine. I really don't think that I would be able to handle that well at all. A part of me was still so angry and bitter over it all.

They had started tapering off the medicine early this morning but they were not expecting Edward to wake up until at least tomorrow. At noon I went out to the waiting room to have lunch with Ethan. Rose and Emmett, who had both taken the day off work, had stopped by with something for us to eat. We were all tired of hospital food and Ethan had started throwing fits and refusing to eat it anymore. Carlisle told me he was about to throw the same fit. Even when he had to work at the hospital he avoided the cafeteria at all costs. My son had helped his Aunt Rose and Uncle Emmett make us lunch. We ended up with peanut butter with strawberry jam, strawberry milk, and a pudding cup in our lunch bags. He was so proud of his work, "Look mama, they put da fruit in da milk."

"Yes, they sure did, baby."

"I notta baby! Babies don't make lunch for mamas."

"No they don't. I guess you're becoming my big boy, aren't you?"

"Yip!" I watched my son finish his lunch and then take off to get his toys out of his bag and set up his little play area.

My parents and sister had been calling me daily for updates on Edward's condition. I knew they were also calling Esme and Carlisle to make sure that I really was taking care of myself. They all felt bad that they couldn't be here with me, but it just wasn't feasible. They lived so far away and they all had jobs and their own responsibilities to take care of. I knew that they would have been right by my side if they could.

I finished eating and was about to throw away our food wrappers when a nurse came running into the waiting room announcing Edward was waking up.

EPOV:

What the hell happened to me? I feel like a freight train has been parked on my body. Ohhh, God, my head hurts so badly. I just need to get some aspirin and some water, I'm sure that's what Eric told me to do last night when he handed me that first beer. Crap. This doesn't even feel like my bed. Oh God! I hope that I didn't do something completely stupid like go home with Jessica after the party. She was all over me last night, but I wasn't that drunk. Was I? No. I had to be home in my bed.

I tried to open my eyes, but I just couldn't do it. "He's waking up!" Mom? Why was Mom in my room? I noticed for the first time that there is something in my mouth and my arm felt so damn heavy. I just needed to get my damn eyes to cooperate with me and open so I could figure out what was going on. Finally! I think as they flutter open. It is so bright in here that it was hard for me to focus on anything. Everything was blurry but I was positive that my mom and dad were at my side. They look different; older somehow. As my vision clears, I notice that I am in a hospital. Oh crap! What did I do?

The tube in my mouth makes me panic and prevents me from talking and asking any questions. Before I know it there is a doctor standing before me instructing me to take a deep breath while he pulls the tube out of my mouth. I start choking and mom hands me a glass of water telling me to take a sip.

The doctor ushers my parents out of the room and does a quick examination on me. He then starts listing off all of my injuries and telling me how lucky I am to have lived through the accident.

"Did I hit anyone?" I had to ask. I had to know. I needed to know how much trouble I'm in. Mom and Dad were definitely going to take my car away from me for this. If there _is_ a car left to take away. Man, I _just_ got my license too. This is going to suck if I have to go back to Mom driving me to school and on dates. Who am I kidding… if I can't drive I will never get another date.

"No. You hit a guardrail, flipped over, and rolled down the embankment. That being said, you never should have been behind the wheel of your car in your condition. Next time call someone to get you, because next time you may not be so lucky."

Then he went on to tell me about the plan for rehabilitation and physical therapy and that the physical therapist would come in soon to meet me and get started. My parents came back in after that along with some blonde woman I had never seen before. I wanted to ask who she was, but I was getting tired again and let my eyes drift shut again.

It didn't feel like a long time had passed before I heard voices again. I opened my eyes to see that blonde woman was still in the room with my parents. I knew she wasn't family. She was quite pretty but not really my type. It suddenly dawned on me who she must be, and damn, if she was the physical therapist maybe this wasn't going to be so bad. She noticed that I was awake and started walking towards me with a big smile on her face.

"Are you the physical therapist?" I asked just to be sure. She stopped fast in her tracks and looked behind her. Who did she think that I was talking to? "What's your name?" I asked trying to get her attention. She looked over at my parents with a look of shock and fear that matched theirs when she realized that I was talking to her.

"Edward, quit playing around. That's not funny." Mom admonished.

"Who's playing around? I was trying to be polite and introduce myself to her." I grumbled.

"You don't recognize her?" Dad asked stunned.

"No. Should I? I take it you're not the therapist then, so, what, are you a cousin I've never met or something?" With that, she burst into tears and ran out of the room with my mom chasing after her. Ok. Maybe therapy with that woman wouldn't be that much fun after all.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset her." I apologized and dad said to just lie back and relax. Then I heard him call for the neurologist. Ten minutes later another woman walked in the door wearing a white lab coat and I knew that she wasn't the therapist, this must another doctor.

"Hello Edward, I am Dr. Snow. I need to ask you a few questions. Can you tell me what is the last thing you remember?"

"I went to a party at my friend Eric's house last night. I know that I'm not supposed to, but I had a few beers."

She nodded and made a note on her clipboard. "Can you tell me the date, including the year, and how old you are?"

That is a weird thing to ask. "Sure, it's October 15th, 1997. I'm 16. Am I going to jail for driving drunk? I know you guys are never going to let me drive again are you?"

"We can worry about that later", Dad said looking at the doctor. Then the two turned and left the room. Mom, sat down in the chair by my side. "I'm so sorry mom. I knew better than to drive like that. I won't do it again. I promise."

"It's ok, Edward. We all make mistakes. We'll talk about it later, ok?" I nodded. I looked out into the hall and watched Dad and the doctor talking to that blonde. I decided to close my eyes again, all the while wondering what the big deal about that woman was. I was desperately trying to figure out who she was. Dad had his hand on her shoulder and was obviously consoling her, so she had to be someone important to the family.

I was still pondering the blonde woman when I heard the door open again. I opened my eyes and saw the hottest woman I had ever laid eyes on. She had this long brown hair that fell over her shoulders and down her chest in a way that really drew your eyes right to her boobs. And they were great looking boobs too.

"Hello, I'm Bella Swan, your rehabilitation therapist. You must be Edward." I just nodded stupidly, totally unable to speak. I was sure I could play that off since my throat was still fricken sore from that tube thing they had jammed down my throat.

"My job is not just to get you up and walking again but to help you with all stages of your recovery, including occupational therapy with the memory issues that you seem to be having. We want to make sure your recovery is thorough." I nodded again. I had no idea what she meant about memory issues, unless it had to due with that blonde who was still hovering around the door. She told mom that Dad wanted to talk to her in the hall and she wanted to start with me right away, so mom kissed me on the forehead before walking out the door. Bella informed me that since I'd been in a coma for three weeks all my muscles were going to be weak. And they were, but damn it if I wasn't going to try my hardest to get out of this bed and soon.

TPOV:

I felt like I was going to throw up as I turned toward the door praying that someone had silently entered the room. I knew he was looking right at me but there was no way that he could be talking to me, asking me who I was. My heart sank when I turned around realizing it _was_ me that Edward was talking to. He didn't know who I was. He seemed to remember his parents though, and as the tears hit, I fled the room. As I hit the waiting room, Emmett caught me and held me.

"Tanya, what the hell's wrong! I thought he woke up!"

"He…(sob)…doesn't…(sob)…know…(sob)…me…" I got out. The room suddenly silenced except for my sobs. I never thought, even with a head injury, that he'd forget. That he wouldn't remember _me_. Oh my God! If he doesn't remember _me_, then would he remember Ethan? "This can't be happening."

After a few minutes, I was finally able to calm down and stop crying. I looked up to find Ethan gone. I started to jump up but Emmett held onto me, "Rose took him to the bathroom and down to the gift shop." I nodded and took some more deep breathes in the hopes of calming down enough to deal with this newest little set-back. I stepped back from Emmett, assuring him that I would be fine, and turned back towards Edwards's room. I found Carlisle, the neurologist, and a brunette woman standing outside the room having a quiet discussion.

"Tanya this is Bella Swan, she's the best physical therapist we have. I feel that Edward is suffering from amnesia. Right now, he thinks it is 1997 and that he's only 16." And I cried harder. Carlisle put his hand on my shoulder and held me close, offering the only comfort he could to me. I was his daughter and his heart broke for what I was enduring now.

"Does that mean he won't remember Ethan either?" I asked.

"No. He thinks that he was driving drunk after leaving a party that he attended with a friend. But I want to try something to try to jog his memory." Bella spoke up. "I am going to head in there to introduce myself and start my work. We want his sisters to come in one at a time. To let him see that they are not teenagers anymore so we can acclimate him before we put a mirror in front of him and tell him that he's lost thirteen years of his life. Now about your son—"

"He can't go in there. I won't let him get hurt when his daddy doesn't know him," I protested.

"Of course not. I wasn't even going to suggest that. I was going to ask if you could bring some photo albums up here for Edward. Bring everything; wedding, the baby, anything you have from the two of you dating. And videos, too, if you have them. "

"This _is_ only temporary right? He will remember us?"

"Tanya, we are going to try hard to get him to remember," Dr. Snow spoke up. "But you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that this may be permanent."

I just nodded and told everyone that I was going home for the photo albums. Carlisle offered to drive me, but what I needed right now was some time to myself to think. What if he never remembered Ethan and me? What was I supposed to do?

EPOV:

I became really confused when Bella had another strange blonde woman came into my room. This one did look a little familiar though. She almost resembled my sister Rose. But that was impossible because Rose was only like nine-years-old. This was a grown woman, who was also wearing a wedding band.

"Who are you?"

"Who do you think she is, Edward?" Bella asked me.

"I don't know. I wouldn't be asking if I knew. Just like with that other blonde woman who was here earlier. Why bring these people in here if you won't tell me who they are?" Were they trying to make me think that I was going crazy?

"I think that's enough right now." Bella told the new blonde. She nodded and left the room and then Bella stood up, walked over to the foot of my bed, and grabbed my foot. "We are going to start simply and small. You can't really walk yet with those casts on so we will have to work up to that." Bella talked and joked with me and asked me questions about myself. She was going to be a lot of fun to be around.

A little while later, another woman popped her head in. Now she really looked like my sister Alice. It was at that point that I started to panic. An older version of Alice, a woman who very well could be an older version of Rose, and Mom and Dad had looked so much older. Oh God! I'd heard stories about people being in comas for years. I started to attempt to get out of bed but Bella kept trying to hold me down while screaming for someone to help her. This big burly guy ran in along with a nurse. Bella and this guy held me down against my struggles and pleading with them that I just needed some answers while the nurse injected something into my IV. The last thing I remembered hearing as I closed my eyes was the guy asking, "Little Bella Swan? Is that really you?"

A/N:

Did anyone see that coming? I am not a physical therapist and I am making it up as I go so I do apologize if I do anything that no therapist would suggest. Let's just call it poetic license.

I am posting now because we are expecting a foot of snow overnight and I can't guarantee that I will have power or internet tomorrow. Thanks to Sweetpea123 for betaing this for me. She is getting chapter 4 tonight so I should be able to update again next weekend. Possibly on Friday because Saturday will be busy.

Reviews will get a teaser of Chapter 4. Which I will tell you has an Emmett POV!


	4. Chapter 4

ASL Chapter 4

Old Friends

Emmett POV:

When it rains, it pours crap for Edward and his family right now. Just when one thing started going right, it all went to hell again fast. Edward woke up thinking he was only sixteen. He didn't know Tanya, his own son…. hell, he wouldn't even remember me. I thought about everything that had happened that he had forgotten and I didn't know how Tanya was going to survive this. There is no way that I would be ok if Rose forgot me.

Rose and I had agreed to watch Ethan for Tanya while she ran home for the photo albums to show Edward to jog his memory. We had been trying to help her out as much as possible whether it was watching Ethan, running to the store, or some housework. I was put in charge of taking care of Jacob's tank since it was my idea to get him. Honestly though, it was the best idea I had ever had. It was so easy to distract Ethan by getting him interested in something that fish was doing.

Rose's sister, Alice, felt bad that she couldn't be more help or come to the hospital more, but she had a newborn at home to take care of. Not to mention she keeps blaming herself for Edward's accident. Jasper told me that she felt like it is her fault because he was tired from waiting up all night for her to have the baby. She thought that if she had just hurried it along a little he wouldn't have been so tired. We all kept telling her that it was no one's fault. All of us could take some blame for not doing more that day. Hell, I could have insisted on driving him to his office and picking him up again. But he told us he was fine and we believed him.

Rose came back from going into his room and told me that it hadn't worked. Alice and Jasper showed up at the hospital a few minutes later with their kids in tow. We sent Alice in right away. I followed her because I just could not sit in that waiting room a minute longer. I waited in the hall where Edward couldn't see me. All of a sudden, I heard someone screaming for help in Edward's room and I ran in to see what was going on. I found some brunette woman attempting to keep Edward in his bed. I ran into the room the same time as a nurse did. I helped hold him down while they gave Edward a sedative to calm him. As the fight left Edward and he closed his eyes, I looked up at the woman I had found restraining him. Fuck me if it wasn't Little Bella Swan. Damn! I hadn't seen her since high school.

"Little Bella Swan? Is that really you?"

"Emmy? Oh my God!"

I ran around the bed and grabbed her into a big hug, "I missed you peanut!"

I sat Bella down right at the same time that Rose ran into the room, "Rose, this is Bella Swan from Forks. I've told you about her. Bella, this is my wife, Rose."

Rose stepped forward to greet Bella, "It's so nice to finally meet you. Emmett told me that he never would have graduated high school if you hadn't agreed to tutor him. He has always spoken so highly of you."

"He only needed someone to hold a mirror in front of him and let him see for himself that he was smart. All I did was show him that he had it in him to be more than just the class clown." That wasn't quite true. Bella was amazing at figuring out what someone needed to be able to learn and overcome obstacles that were in the way of that person's success.

"I didn't know you were even in Seattle. I thought you went to college in Florida to be closer to your mother. How long have you been in Seattle? Are you are nurse or something?"

"I've only been back a few months and I am a physical and occupational therapist."

"I bet the Chief is thrilled to have you to closer to him again."

"Uh. He wishes I'd take a job in Forks or at least come down to visit a lot more."

"I know he missed you when you left. I always take time to visit him whenever I make it home. He and I always had a special relationship."

"Is that what you call it? I think he calls it something else. I believe he told me that he wished he could use you for target practice, more than once."

"I wasn't that bad."

"Yes you were. How many times did they have to replace the stop sign in town?"

"That was all in good fun."

"What about the time you tried to teach that group of Boy Scouts how to start a fire."

"It was on the list of things they were supposed to learn. I still don't understand why they thought it was a good idea for _me_ to take over that troop."

"But you did it on the school football field! You were lucky no one got hurt or killed!"

"It sounded like a good idea at the time. No one in their right mind would have allowed to children to wander off into the woods with me. Besides, it wasn't that bad and the damage was minimal."

"Your bonfire was so large you could see the smoke for miles. That is how they found you."

"But all of them knew how to start a fire and how to put one out properly when I was done."

"And they got to watch their scout leader get arrested for vandalism."

"I never actually got arrested."

"You were cuffed and hauled down to the station. That is one of Dad's top ten favorite days at work."

"I wasn't actually arrested. I was only detained until my parents could come pick me up."

"How are your parents anyway? They're still in Forks right?"

"Oh yes. Mom will never leave there."

"Dad is the same way. He loves it too much and takes his job protecting the town quite seriously."

"How long have the two of you been married?" Bella questioned. Rose and I launched into the quick version of our relationship. Rose was my life. I would give her anything her heart desired if I could. This afternoon I was giving her the dream house she wanted. We had an appointment to sign papers on the house we were buying and I could not wait to be able to move in.

Rose moved forward and offered her hand to Bella with a smile, "Well, I can certainly see why Emmett is so fond of you and I am happy that you are going to be helping my brother. Maybe you can come over for dinner and tell me more about Emmett's high school adventures."

"I'd like that a lot. I really haven't made any friends here. I work so much. But I'd better go. I need to catch Dr. Snow and tell her about what happened with Edward." I hugged Bella as she went on her way.

"She is just as sweet as you always said she was. I think I'm going to really like her. We better not be in here when Edward wakes up." She looked down at her watch, "Care to escort your wife to the bank and buy her a house?"

"Where's Ethan?"

"With Mom. They are taking him home to go swimming and spend the afternoon away from the hospital."

"Good. He needs that." I kissed her forehead as I took her hand in mine and walked her out to our car. If Bella was helping Edward everything would be back to normal in no time. I was positive about that.

TPOV:

I walked into the house that I had lived in with my husband since he graduated from medical school. It was nice, more than we could really afford at the time, but that was okay. We both knew that even if we had to scrimp and save for a few years that it would be all right in the end. It was big enough for a family to grow into and in a neighborhood with good schools. I never cared about the things that I wanted that I couldn't afford to get myself because the mortgage was so expensive. I have a wall that has lines etched into it that mark Ethan's growth.

We started marking his height on his first birthday; we do it every year on that day, and will continue to do it until he is eighteen. I always thought that we would eventually add marks for the other children that Edward and I would have. It made the miscarriage that much harder to get over. I wanted more marks on that wall. I wanted it so bad. Just thinking about losing my baby made me want to throw something at the wall. Instead, I sank to the ground and cried in the middle of my living room.

My sister Kate always had this sixth sense about knowing when I needed someone to talk to. It was no surprise then, when she called my cell phone a few minutes after my crying jag started. "I swear you have my house bugged," I attempted to joke with her while trying to halt my tears.

"I just had this feeling something was wrong. What happened?" I went into the whole story with her and she let me cry on her shoulder, figuratively speaking. I felt a little better by the time I got off the phone with her. She was always a believer in positive thinking and believed that we all were confident that Edward would get back his memories soon and everything would go back to the way it was before the accident. The only problem with that, no amount of positive thinking would give me my baby back. But she didn't know about that. Only Carlisle, Esme, and I knew about that and at this point probably those only ones that ever would.

I dragged myself off the floor and started collecting every photo album and home movie that I could find. I was never so glad that Edward insisted that we record everything. Especially when he was doing his residency and would be gone for days at a time, I would tape Ethan for him and that way he wouldn't miss out on anything. It also meant that we had just about every first of Ethan's caught on tape.

When I returned to the hospital I found out the attempts made by his sisters had not garnished much in the way of positive results. Instead, it caused him to get upset and they needed to sedate him. The doctor and that Bella woman were waiting at the hospital to talk to him when he woke up. Carlisle and Esme had taken a cranky Ethan back to their house for a nap while I was gone so I was the only one sitting with Edward for a while.

At first, I pulled the chair over next to his bed, stroked his face, and smoothed out his hair, "I love you Edward. You and Ethan are not just my life; the two of you are my soul. I need you to remember us sweetheart. Please wake up and remember us." Then I sat there is silence until I grew tired. I moved the chair over by the window and curled up in the hopes that I could doze for a bit.

EdwardPOV:

I opened my eyes and started looking around the hospital room that I was in. This time I wasn't so disoriented. I knew where I was and I was pretty sure I knew what was going on. I could tell by the soft light coming through the window that the sun was starting to go down. I sighed as I took in the sight of the blonde sitting in the chair by the window. It was the first one that had been in my room that I made cry. I knew I should apologize to her but she was sleeping so soundly that I couldn't bring myself to disturb her.

I sat there quietly in the quickly darkening room and let myself get lost in my thoughts. Had I really been in a coma for years? Damn. How old am I? How much of life did I miss out on?

I was still lying there lost in my thoughts when a nurse came into the room, "Look who's awake."

"How much did I miss? How long was I out?"

"I'm sorry. I can't answer that."

"Please. I need to know."

"I'm sorry, but the doctor needs to be the one to talk to you. I'll call him down as soon as I am done here. Ok?"

"Fine. Can you at least tell me who she is?" I asked pointing to the lady sleeping in my room.

"I'm sorry. The doct-"

"The doctor will tell me. I get it."

"I am sorry. I know it must be very frustrating but it is better to let the doctor answer your questions."

"I get it. Thanks. What about some food?" I asked hopefully.

"I can have the kitchen bring something up."

"Can I get a burger and fries? Maybe a milkshake?"

"How about we start with something a little lighter, huh? Maybe some toast and scrambled eggs? If you hold that down all right I'll see about getting you that burger and fries tomorrow. Ok?" 

"Fine. I guess," I pouted, making the nurse laugh.

"I'll go call Dr. Snow and the kitchen."

The nurse quickly finished getting my vitals taken and recorded, then she helped me use this jug thing to go to the bathroom. That was damn embarrassing, but as she put it, it was better than having a catheter shoved up there. Just the thought of that had me wincing in pain. She told me that the harder I work with Bella the sooner I would be able to get up and use the bathroom. She left the room a minute later with the promise that the doctor would be down soon.

I turned to watch the lady sleeping in the chair again. She was pretty. Surely she had a husband and maybe some kids to go home to. So I wondered why she was still here. Why would she choose to sit in my room while I slept? Maybe she was the police and I _was _under arrest for drunk driving and being a minor. Then why would she start crying when I didn't know who she was. The longer I sat there lost in my thoughts, the more confused and frustrated I became.

A half an hour later, the doctor still hadn't come down to my room to talk to me and I wondered what the hold-up was. I was tempted to call the nurse and ask what was taking so long but didn't. I didn't want to be any more trouble than probably already had been.

When I couldn't take the silence any longer I grabbed the remote to turn on the TV that was mounted to the wall. It was a strange one though. It was completely flat. I guessed that a lot of things were going to seem strange to me for awhile while I caught up with everything that I had missed.

I aimed the remote at the TV and hit the power button but nothing happened. I kept trying but still nothing happened. I finally gave up when I looked closer at the TV and noticed that someone had unplugged it. I sighed and sagged back into the bed. Now I was really restless. I look over at the table next to my bed, hoping that someone had left something that I could read. The only thing there was a pitcher of water and a couple of cups.

Another twenty minutes went by and I was about to call for the nurse, when my parents walked into the room. So that is what they were waiting for. They wanted my parents to be in the room when they talked to me. I didn't really care who was in the room with me as long as some one gave me some answers.

A/N:

Hey there! Ffn is finally letting me update. The next chapter is going off to Sweetpea123 tonight betaing and then some edits. So the next update will be next weekend. I did a lot of editing and rewriting of this chapter after Sweetpea sent it back to me so all errors are my fault. I appreciate the time she takes out of her very busy schedule to beta this for me. Reviews will get a teaser of Chapter 5!


	5. Chapter 5

ASL Chapter 5

Confusion and Guilt

Alice POV:

I didn't know what to think about his reaction to me. I didn't spark his memory, but something happened that upset him to the point they had to sedate him. I couldn't stay and watch that woman and Emmett holding him down while he demanded answers.

I went back down to the waiting room to my husband and our son. My parents had invited our daughter to spend the afternoon at their house to swim and play with Ethan. Having Kara gone for the afternoon was going to be a nice treat. I love my daughter but I hadn't slept much in the last few weeks. Even when Aiden did fall asleep I couldn't get myself to sleep much. I didn't feel like I deserve a restful night's sleep.

Jasper didn't ask what happened; he just hugged me and held me for a minute before picking up Aiden's carrier as we turned to leave the hospital. It was rare that we all left the hospital, leaving Edward there alone, but he would be asleep for hours and Tanya would be back soon to sit with him.

Jasper left me to my thoughts as he drove us to our house. He quietly went to the kitchen to make us a snack while I settled on the sofa in the living room to feed Aiden. Jasper joined us a few minutes later with a bowl of the mixed fruit salad I had made for breakfast this morning.

His way of joining in on the feeding of our children was to feed me while I was feeding them. He was hand-feeding me pieces of fruit. It really was quite sweet of him. As usual, Aiden fell asleep when he was full and Jasper took him from me to go put him down in his crib.

I wandered up to our bedroom and crawled into the bed. I hadn't made it in weeks. I pretty much just threw the blankets back onto the bed when I changed the sheets. I had very little energy at the moment and I chose to pick my battles carefully.

I felt the bed dip as Jasper climbed in behind me, "Are you ready to talk yet?"

"There is not much to say."

"Ok. When you're ready to talk, I'm here for you. I saw the sketches you left on the dinner table."

"I couldn't help it. Inspiration for a new line hit and I wanted to get it down."

"That's understandable as long as I don't find you hauling out swatches and sewing machines for at least the next four weeks. Your body and mind need time to recover from the birth."

"I promise, just the sketches."

"Close your eyes and let's get some sleep before we have to go pick up our little tornado from your parent's house."

He draped his arm around my waist and grabbed my hand in his and held it tight. I laid there with my eyes closed, listening to him breathe until I was positive that he had fallen asleep."

I slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom, closing the door behind me. I turned on the shower, sat down on the toilet, and sobbed. I was so tired of everyone trying to appease my guilt by telling me it wasn't my fault, because it was my fault. He would not have been up all night if it wasn't for me taking so long to give birth. His loss of memory just made it a million times worse. I caused him to forget his own child. How was I ever going to be able to forgive myself for that?

An hour later I turned off the shower, washed my face in the sink, and walked out of the bathroom to find Jasper sitting on the floor by the door.

"You need to talk to someone, sweetheart. If not me, then maybe your dad can recommend someone."

"I'll think about it."

"Alice, I'm worried for you. Please!"

I sighed and walked back to the bed. I sat on the edge with my head in my hands. I knew my hormones were off with the new baby but my husband was right. I needed to talk to someone that was not in involved, someone neutral, "Ok. I'll talk to my doctor soon and get a name. I don't want to bother Dad with this. They have enough to worry about with Edward."

"Thank you. I love you and I hate seeing you hurting like this." I nodded my head in response. "Get some sleep. I will get up with Aiden if he wakes up." This time I was able to fall asleep.

I woke up a couple of hours later and walked downstairs to find Jasper sitting at the kitchen table holding Aiden and going through my sketches again. He had separated them into different piles. I took a seat in the chair next to him and he handed the baby to me so I could feed him. I asked him what he was doing and he went through the three piles that he made with me. One was the sketches that he loved, one was the sketches that he would suggest needed something, and the last pile was the sketches that he didn't like. I knew he wasn't being pushy, he was good at this stuff and he knew that I would be asking for his opinion on them anyway.

Jasper offered to go pick up some take-out for us for dinner but I really felt like cooking. I told him that he could stop at the bakery on our way to my parent's house tonight and grab us something chocolate.

I went to the kitchen and started rooting around in the fridge, looking for something I could make for dinner. We decided to watch a movie while we were eating dinner. Jasper must really be trying to cheer me up because he picked out Pirates of the Caribbean. Which did make me smile a little; he hated watching anything with Johnny Depp in it. He claimed that whenever one of his movies came on I couldn't stop drooling. When the movie finished I got up and took the dishes to the kitchen. Jasper found me standing there staring at the sink full of dirty dishes. He told me to just leave them and he would do them when we came home later. Personally, I really didn't care if they were washed or thrown in the garbage at this point. All I could think was that the dirty dishes were just another pointless aggravation in life. My husband grabbed me and pulled me into a hug as he noticed the tears streaming down my face again.

Esme POV:

I stood in my kitchen staring out the window. I had spent a lot of time lost in my thoughts lately. The last three weeks had been so hard on the whole family. We were so sure that once Edward woke up everything was going to be fine. I felt the tears streaking down my cheeks but did not bother to wipe them away. What was going to happen to my baby? What if he never remembered all those years that he lost? What about Tanya? Ethan? All of the years of hard work he put in to become a doctor. Oh my God, if he didn't remember the present then he would lose his medical license and his family could lose their home.

I watched as Carlisle was getting the kids out of the pool for dinner. He wrapped them in big towels and then he ushered them into the house. I watched my grandchildren all but run toward the house. I turned back to the counter and resumed cutting up the vegetables for dinner. The heard the sliding door open and in moments two wet bodies were pressed against my legs. I looked behind me to find that Carlisle was picking up the wet towels they had both dropped at the door with an amused expression on his face. Alice and Edward did the same thing every time they went swimming. They still do. He folded them, dropping them on the counter and smiled at the dinner I was making.

I felt Carlisle's arms wrap around my waist, he kissed my neck and whispered in my ear, "Just keep faith that everything will work out the way it needs to be, Esme. He's alive and awake and that itself is a miracle, given his injuries and the damage to his car." I never saw the car after the accident. I didn't want to see it. Carlisle and Emmett took care of disposing of it. Carlisle grabbed the kids up in his arms, "Let's go wash up and change while Nana finishes dinner."

I stood in the quiet again, sighed, and turned to the stove to fry the hamburger. I had just finished plating the foot and was setting it on the table when they returned to the kitchen.

"TACOS! YEA!" I knew it was one of Ethan's favorites. I handed him a glass of milk and sat down to eat my own supper. I couldn't help but smile at Ethan trying to eat his tacos and the mess he made. He not only had food all over the table but he also had it all over his clothes. Carlisle offered to do the dishes while I got Ethan ready for bed.

Alice and Jasper had arrived by the time we came back downstairs. I hated that we had to ask her to come watch Ethan so we could return to the hospital. She was still recovering from giving birth to Aiden. Kara was a handful herself. We had brought her home with us from the hospital so she and Ethan could spend the afternoon playing together. They were used to being together every day and they had rarely seen each other since the accident. But while Ethan was spending the night with us tonight, Kara was going home with her parents.

Alice was cutting into a chocolate cake that she had brought with her and Jasper was adding scoops of chocolate ice cream, "You baked?"

"No. I made my husband stop at the bakery on our way here. I wanted chocolate and wasn't in the mood to actually bake anything. Besides I knew it was my nephew's favorite." I guess I wasn't the only one trying the bribe the child into a good mood with food. I'll bet she got that from me.

"Can I has some, Nana? _Please_!"

"Yes. But you have to brush your teeth again, deal?"

"Deal." We sat at the table eating our cake in silence. Well, relatively in silence. Kara and Ethan were quite the noisy eaters tonight. Both ended up with chocolate all over their faces. I was just about to take them upstairs to clean up when Carlisle's phone went off. Jasper took the kids from me, "I've got it, Ma."

"That was Dr. Snow. He's awake again. We need to get back to the hospital as soon as possible. She wants us there when she talks to him." Edward had gotten upset when they brought his sisters in the room. I could not imagine how frustrated he must be right now and how disorienting this whole ordeal is on him. I kissed my babies on the cheek, including my grown up ones, and followed Carlisle out the door to his car.

Carlisle attempted to distract me on the drive to the hospital by reminding me of a few things that were coming up on our calendar soon. For years I have sat on a couple of hospital committees and I knew I could not disappoint them by bowing out this year. I had no real reason to. Edward was awake and on the mend. My avoiding my responsibilities to sit by his side was not going to help him regain his memories any faster.

We arrived at the hospital and found Dr. Snow at the nurse's station on Edward's floor. She updated us on what had happened with Edward earlier in the afternoon. We already knew most of what had gone on because Alice had called me on her way home from the hospital. She also wanted to talk about how she wanted to handle this conversation with Edward and how she was ready to sedate him again if all became too much for him. As frustrating as it may become for everyone involved, we may have to resign ourselves to the fact that we may need to feed him information a little bit at a time. I didn't care how we did it, I just wanted my son to have his life back and Ethan needed his father back.

Edward POV:

I watched as my mom approached the woman in the chair, "Tanya, sweetheart, you need to wake up now."

The woman sat up, rubbed her face, and groaned before looking at my mom and said, "Where is Ethan?"

"He is with Alice and Jasper." So her name was Tanya. That was one question answered. But who was Ethan? Her husband? I noticed a ring a moment ago when she was rubbing her face. She just nodded at mom's comment that this Ethan was with my sister and someone named Jasper, whoever he was, and excused herself to the bathroom. There were too many questions that were flying through my head, like who the hell was this Jasper and why was he with my sister. It was doubtful that I was going to get answers for all of the questions I had tonight, but they had to give me something right?

I turned my attention to Dad as he moved some chairs around and then called the nurse to bring in a fourth so that everyone had a seat around my bed.

"You look like you got some sun since this morning." I said, looking at Dad closely.

"Uh...yeah…your Mom and I took some time to relax in the pool this afternoon," he said, shooting mom a funny look. I know that look. That is something that I do remember. It always meant that they were hiding something from me.

"That sounds like fun right now, being in the hot sun. It's cold in here."

"It's going to be a long time before you can go swimming. You have a lot of physical injuries that need to heal first."

"I know. I feel them every time I move."

"Do you need more pain medicine? A blanket?"

"Yes on the blanket. No on the medicine. The pain is not that bad right now."

"Just let us know if you do and we will get them for you."

"I will."

We fell into an easy silence until Tanya, I guess it was, came out of the bathroom a moment later. She had obviously pulled her hair back and washed her face but she still looked so tired.

"Hello again, Edward. Do you remember who I am?" The doctor from this morning asked me as she walked into my room and took a seat in the only unoccupied chair.

"You're Dr. Snow," I told the woman.

I watched as she pulled a needle out of her pocket and I eyed it as she laid it on the table next to me, "I promise not to use it unless I absolutely have to. I have a few questions for you and then we'll try to get you some answers for anything else we haven't covered. Ok?"

"Ok."

"You've had a few visitors today. Can you tell me who they are? List every one you can think of that was here before we had to sedate you."

"My parents, you were here earlier, some nurses, Bella, her," I pointed to the blonde, "There was another blonde and a dark haired woman who looks like she could be… OH! And some big guy I guess was a security guard or something, he helped Bella hold me down when I was trying get out of the bed until they could knock me out again. I really don't want to sleep anymore right now. Please?"

"What security guard?"

"He was a big guy. He knew Bella but was surprised to see her here for some reason."

"That was Emmett," Mom spoke up.

"Ok. Let's start with her. Do you know who she is?" She pointed to the woman sitting with my parents.

"I just heard Mom call her Tanya. I guess that is who she is."

"Do you recognize her at all? Anything familiar about her?"

"No. Nothing." As soon as I said this I saw a tear slip down Tanya's face.

"Ok. Let's talk about the other two women for a moment. Do you know them?"

"I think I do. But I don't want to believe that I'm actually right."

"Tell me who you think they are?"

"I think they are my sisters, but they can't be."

"Why can't they be?"

"Because they are too old to be my sisters. Rose is only a child and that blonde that was here earlier was a grown woman who is married."

"How do you know she was married?"

"She wore a ring. But they both look like…I'm right aren't I. They were Rose and Alice."

"Yes, they are."

"I've been in a coma from the accident right? I get that. Now, please tell me how long was I out?"

They all looked at each other before dad answered, "You've been in a medically induced coma for about three weeks."

"That can't be."

"It's true."

"NO! If I've only been out for a few weeks why does everyone else look years older than they should be and who the hell are you? Why are _YOU_ here?" I yelled aiming the last part at that Tanya woman.

"Calm down Edward or I will have to sedate you." Dr. Snow warned me.

I laid back against the pillows and waited for someone to answer my questions.

"Edward. It is July and the year is 2010."

"I want a mirror. I want to see my face." I demanded and Mom started fumbling in her purse. I looked at the other woman again.

"Who are you? Why are you here? "

She looked up at the doctor before responding, "I am your wife."

A/N:

Happy Saturday! Thanks to Sweetpea123 for betaing this for me. But I did play with a few things after she sent it back to me so all mistakes are mine. Reviews will get a teaser of chapter 6 which will post next Saturday. I know something might seem to be repetitive but they come from different perspectives.


	6. Chapter 6

ASL Chapter 6

The Shocking Truth

EPOV:

"What do you mean you're my _wife_? How can you…? It's not possible."

"It is possible Edward. It's true." Dad spoke softly to me. Then Mom handed me a photo album, that a quick glance showed that it was opened to a picture of a wedding. I looked at every one of them standing there in my room watching me intently. They were silently waiting for me to really look at the picture. They were waiting to see what my reaction was going to be. I hesitated before finally getting the courage to take a closer look at the album. I didn't really want to see it, but curiosity got the better of me.

I looked down at the book in my hand. I saw my parents. They were standing next to the two women that were here earlier. I guess they really were…I mean _are _my sisters. Then, in the middle of the photo, I saw myself. I was standing next to this Tanya woman. I was wearing a tux and she was the bride. I couldn't take any more so I slammed the book shut and closed my eyes.

"How old am I again?"

"You just turned twenty nine." Mom handed me the compact she now held in her hand. I opened it and took in the sight of my face for the first time. There were some cuts on my face. But beyond that I really didn't look like me. The face in the mirror was too old to be mine. I reached up and touched my face. It was so unreal.

"Maybe that is enough for now. Let's let him absorb the information he has been given," Dr. Snow suggested and Dad agreed.

"We should get home to Ethan anyway so Alice can go home and rest."

That wasn't alright with me though. I wanted answers and they really hadn't given me enough. If they weren't going to volunteer any information then I was going to demand some. "Why does Alice need rest? Is she ok? She…she wasn't in the car when I wrecked it, was she? Who is this Jasper you told her" I pointed at Tanya again, "was with my sister? Please? I have so many damn questions and no one is giving me any answers!"

"Edward, please, you need to calm down. You were alone in the car. Alice is fine" I nodded and closed my eyes again.

"If she is fine then why does she need to rest then?"

"She just had a baby. He's only three weeks old."

"Can I see her again? And Rose?"

"Maybe tomorrow, son. Right now you need to rest." I nodded and closed my eyes once more. It was so overwhelming. For the few answers they had given me, it only produced a million more questions in my head. But there was one in particular that was nagging at me. My dad started talking before I could bring it up and I considered just letting it drop for now, but I really needed to know the answer.

"Tanya, are you staying or do you need a ride home?"

"I don't know." She turned to me, "Edward, would it upset you if I stayed?" I didn't open my eyes but I shook my head no in response. "I have my car anyway if you change your mind."

They were all saying their goodbyes and making plans to come back in the morning when I opened my eyes again, and before I lost my opportunity I asked, "Who's Ethan?" They all froze. I don't think that any of them was even breathing at that point. After a very long minute, Dr. Snow nodded at Tanya. "You said you had to get home to him. Who is he?"

She walked over to me. Sat on the edge of my bed, held my hand and whispered, "He's our three-year-old son." I closed my eyes and tried to come up with a memory. Anything. I didn't care how small or inconsequential the memory might seem to some, I just wanted to be able to remember something about them, but I just couldn't. It was just too much to find out that I had a wife and son that I did not know. I became too overwhelmed and started to cry while this woman, who was nothing more than a stranger to me, held me and comforted me.

Dad ushered Mom and Dr. Snow out of the room, leaving me alone with Tanya. I pulled back from her, but she never let go of my hand as she took her other hand and smoothed the hair away from my face.I wanted to ask her everything. I wanted to know how we met and how long we have been married, but I did not have the courage to do so.

"Can you get me a drink of water, please?" I asked her after I had finally stopped crying. She nodded and left the room with the pitcher while I sat there with that photo album in my lap. In it was held permanent reminders of precious memories that I had lost, but I could not get myself to open it and look at any of it.

Tanya returned a few minutes later with not only a pitcher of water but a can of Dr. Pepper. That had always been my favorite. She handed me the pop and a glass of water before she turned to walk away. I grabbed her hand before she could get far and I pulled her closer to me and touched the wedding rings on her fingers. No matter how hard I tried I could not remember any of it. Then I looked at my hand, "Where is mine?"

"It is in my purse. The ER had to remove them for safety reasons."

"Ok." Not sure about whether or not I should be asking her to give it back for me to put on. I trusted that my parents would never lie or joke with me about something like this, but how was I supposed to grasp the concept that I was married to a complete stranger? I had no idea what to do with that information.

"You can look at that if you want," she pointed to the photo album in my lap, "I have more albums and videos. You had me document everything you missed out on during your internship and residency."

"So I become a doctor like I always planned?"

"Yes."

"Not for long though if I don't remember going through medical school."

"You'll get your memories back soon Edward, I am positive about it."

"At least one of us is. Do you have a picture of him that I can see?"

She pulled a picture out of her purse and handed it to me. It was me and a little boy that was me in miniature. The boy...Ethan was sitting on my lap. He looked just like me. But there was something that caught my eye. In the background was that guy that was here earlier and some strange guy I had not seen here yet. "Who are they?" I asked, pointing to the guys.

"The bigger one is Emmett. He is married to your sister Rose. And that other guy is Alice's husband, Jasper." I looked at our hands that were joined again and then I looked at her. I wanted so much to remember everything. I married this woman so I must have loved her. I mean I must love her. Then there was my son.

"What is he like? What's his middle name?"

"His full name is Ethan Edward Cullen and he is a lot like you. In fact, he tries so hard to do everything that he sees you doing." I nodded again.

"And he is an only child?"

"Yes. But he is very close to Aliceand Jasper's oldest, Kara. I was watching her while Alice worked."

"You don't work?"

"No. We both wanted me to stay home with him and any other kids we had." A weird look passed over her face when she talked about other kids but I didn't ask about it. She seemed like a really sweet lady who had been through too much lately.

I held onto the picture but I closed my eyes and tried to shut off my brain. I was trying not to ask anything else, as I was sure that I was not going to be able to handle any more bomb-shells tonight. I opened my eyes and looked over to Tanya, who was sitting in the chair next to my bed watching me, "Can you turn on the TV? I don't want to think about anything else tonight."

"I can do that," she responded and walked over to the TV to plug it in.

"Why was it unplugged?"

"Oh, the doctors didn't want you to accidentally hear something that would upset you before we had the chance to talk to you." That made sense to me. She curled up in the chair and drifted off to sleep again while I sat there watching her until I drifted off as well.

It was morning when I woke again and the nurse was in my room doing vitals. I looked over to the chair to see if Tanya was still asleep but the chair was empty. "She just ran home to shower and change. She said she would be back soon. I am sure that the rest of your family will be here soon enough as well. There is normally someone here at all times." I nodded. Again. If I kept up with this form of nonverbal communication, my head was going to become even more unhinged than it already was. "Your breakfast will be here any minute and I suggest eating up, because Bella will be here in about half an hour to start working with you."

Bella POV:

I never dreamed that I would run into Emmett again, let alone in my patient's room. What were the odds of that happening? He was the reason I decided to become an occupational and physical therapist. I had started tutoring in my sophomore year of high school. That was when I still lived with Mom in Phoenix, before her job transferred her to Florida. When I decided to move to Forks and live with my Dad at the beginning of my junior year they were eager to get me as a tutor. I had never worked with anyone that needed as much patience and help as Emmett McCarty did. But Emmett was the first person that I was really able to help, and it felt good knowing that I had really made a difference in his life. I wanted that to be able to do that with other people. I liked being able to make a difference.

I found a good school that happened to be close to my mom and took off for Florida shortly after graduation. It wasn't exactly a decision that made my Dad happy. After all, I had only lived with him for two years and he wasn't ready to have me leave him again.

The next four years were hard on me. I missed my dad and I missed thePacific Northwest more than I ever thought I would. He and I had become close in the short time I had lived with him. The humidity in Florida was something that I just could not get used too. That's not the whole truth, I also couldn't get used to living so close to my Mom again after living with Dad. Where Dad was laid back, Mom made meddling into every part of my life an art form. I worked hard and graduated at the top of my class and moved back toWashington.

Dad was thrilled and Mom was disappointed but I had long since given up hope of ever being able to please both of them at the same time. It was just never going to happen. It was hard starting over alone in a new town. I was looking forward to being friends with Emmett and his wife. Maybe they could introduce me to some of their cute, single friends from school.

I looked over at the clock on my bedside table and realized that I needed to get my butt out of bed and get ready for work. By the time I was done in the shower so was my coffee. I threw on my bathrobe, grabbed a cup of coffee, and went to sit on the balcony of my apartment to enjoy a quiet moment before I had to dress and leave.

I was just about to get up and go back into my apartment when Dad called. He and I had been playing phone tag for the last couple of days. "Hey dad! What's up?"

"Just wanted to know if you can come down to Forks this weekend?"

"I think so. I'm not on call, but let me get back to you. I have a new patient I started with yesterday and I want to see how he's doing before I make any commitments. Oh! Guess who his brother-in-law is? Emmett McCarty!"

"UGH! I was really hoping to never have to hear his name again."

"I only saw him for a minute but he seems a lot different now, Dad. He's married and his wife is really nice and beautiful. She told me that she wants me to come over for dinner sometime and tell her stories of Emmett from high school."

"Ooh! Can I come? Please! I have lots of stories I could share."

"Dad!" I admonished him with a laugh, "I want them to be my friends, not land him in divorce court." We talked for a few more minutes before I had to let him go so I wouldn't be late for work. Today was going to be a long day. First I had to work with Edward, and then I had to go to a local elementary school to work with two autistic patients of mine that attended school there before I returned to the hospital to see patients in my office and the PT room.

I took a minute to call the hospital to check on Edward. I had to know how his night had gone before I decided how I wanted to proceed today. I also wanted to be up-to-date when I talked to his doctors about his case. There were some doctors that felt occupational therapists were beneath them intellectually because we did not go through medical school. Dr. Snow was not one of those doctors, but I was not inclined to get complacent and embarrass myself in front of a colleague by not having the most current information I could have on my patients.

They told me about the conversation Edward had had with his family and Dr. Snow last night and how he responded to the all of the information that was thrown at him. He seemed to take it well enough. I was glad that Edward allowed Tanya to try to comfort him, but Dr. Snow and Edward's father had stayed right outside the door and waited until they were sure that Edward was not going need to be sedated.

I ran intoCarlisleand his wife when I was waiting for the elevator to go up to Edward's room when I arrived at the hospital. They had a little boy with them that had to be Edward's son. He was jumping around like someone had given him an extra large coffee this morning.

"Hi!" he said to me, "I'm Ethan."

"Hello Ethan. I'm Bella."

"I'ma gonna see my mama." He told me.

"Really?"

"Uh-huh. I hadda stay wif Nana and Papa again last night, cuz it was mama's turn to watch Daddy. He's sleeping so if you see him you hafta be very, very quiet. Ok?"

"I promise if I see him I'll be very quiet." I said with a whispered laugh.

"I miss my daddy. He's been sweeping a really long time." I didn't get to respond to him because the elevator doors opened and he ran off away from them, and Esme took off running to catch up to him.

"Sorry about his energy level. Apparently my wife and I need to learn to tell each other when we give him chocolate milk. He had two large glasses this morning,"Carlisleapologized as we walked out of the elevator. I looked over and noticed that Esme had Ethan in a corner. They were sitting on a blanket and spreading out his toys. "We try to keep him out of everyone's way as much as possible." I just nodded at that and noticed Dr. Snow was standing at the nurse's station writing in a chart.

After a quick greeting we decided to go to a consultation room to have some privacy while we discussed Edward and our plan of action for today. I knew that Dr. Snow had not intended to give Edward as much information as they did last night but he had seemed to handle it pretty well, and they had not needed to sedate him again.

Edward had requested not only to see his sisters, but when Dr. Snow was just in his room he asked about seeing Ethan.

"It could trigger his memory,"Carlislesuggested hopefully.

Dr. Snow and I looked at each other briefly. I knew that he was thinking the same thing, if seeing his picture didn't trigger his memory, seeing the boy in person wasn't bound to do it either. It was very disconcerting that none of the family members that went into his room yesterday were able to trigger his memories. It was still early in his recovery and no one could ever predict what was going to be the one thing that brought a patient's memories back to him. It was always a game of wait and see.

"I am most worried about traumatizing Ethan if Edward panics again." I voiced my concerns.

"I think Edward is capable of controlling himself at this point and I think that Ethan should be fine, but I want either Bella or I in the room when all of his visitors are there."

"Alright."Carlisle agreed, "Ethan is in the waiting room with Esme, do you want me to take him down there now?"

"Not yet. I want to talk to Edward and I need to work with him for a little bit. I don't want to bring Ethan in only to have to take him right back out. I don't see that going over well."

It was agreed that they would wait until I was done with Edward's physical work, which wouldn't take long as his one leg was still in a cast. His sisters wouldn't be able to get to the hospital until late in the afternoon. I would have to try to come back to assist in those meetings. I walked down the hall and knocked on the open door to Edward's room and greeted Edward and his wife, "Good Morning!"

A/N:

I've decided to go ahead and post tonight while ffn is actually working. Thanks to Sweetpea123 for betaing this and the LL outtake that I submitted to the juvenile diabetes fundraiser.

I do believe that this story is going to end up being longer than I thought it would be. I never intended to focus this much time on Edward's time in the hospital but I can only type what the characters tell me to. They run the show.

Son's quartet season is over and we only have 2 weeks until his final concert with the orchestra at the art museum. After that I will have a lot more free time to write. I had a new plot bunny dig its way into my brain. So now I have two stories in my head for when this one is done.

Reviews will get a teaser of Chapter 7.


	7. Chapter 7

ASL Chapter 7

Ethan

EPOV

I looked up when Bella entered the room. Tanya, who had only been back for a few minutes, was just moving my breakfast tray away from my bed. She smiled when Bella walked in and greeted us, "Good Morning to you too, Bella." She seemed to like Bella as much as I did.

"I hear you got quite a bit of information last night. How are you doing with that?"

"I'm overwhelmed by it all yet I feel like the information I did get is not enough."

"I'm sure. Do you have any questions for me?"

"I had about a million questions last night. But the more I've thought about everything the list of question grew to, oh I don't know, about a zillion. I just don't know what to ask first, how to ask it, or if I really want more answers right now."

"I get that. Just ask what you want to know when you're ready to know. We'll let you take the lead on that. I'm not guaranteeing that you will get answers or even answers that you'll like but we'll try. Ok?"

"Ok."

"Now, I was also told that you want to have your sisters and your son brought in to see you. The sisters I am not so worried about, but when it comes to that adorable little boy I just met in the elevator a few minutes ago, I want to be overcautious."

"They're here?" Tanya interrupted.

"Yes, Toyland is being built in the waiting room as we speak."

"Excuse me," Tanya said as she slipped out of the room obviously anxious to see her baby.

"Anyways, after your reaction to seeing your sister yesterday, if we bring him in here, I need to be sure that I am not going to be forced to restrain you in front of him until the doctor can sedate you. Now neither of us can be positive of anything at this point. So this is the plan that your Dad, Dr. Snow, and I came up with. Your parents and Dr. Snow will be in here the whole time. Your parents plus your wife will stand by him ready to block his view and get him out of here in a heartbeat. Ok?"

"Yes. Of course. I don't want to upset him. I just feel this need to actually see him and not just in some pictures of times that I don't remember."

"If you start feeling overwhelmed, try to let us know, if possible." I nodded my head to her. "Now it's time for the fun part of my visit, well, fun for me and painful for you. I need to work the leg muscles of your leg that is not broken. You have been stationary for weeks and I need to get those muscles in good condition to support your weight for when we do get you out of that bed."

She grabbed the remote and positioned the bed so that I was lying flat and went to work on my leg. We talked a bit while she was working on my leg. Well, she talked and I bit my tongue and tried not to cry…too much.

Pain would shoot up my back and down my leg that was in the cast every time she would move what was supposed to be my good leg. She tried to distract me while she worked by telling me stories and asking me questions. It mostly was her talking because there wasn't much about my life that I remembered to be able to be able to hold a decent conversation about. She told me about her parents and growing up bouncing between them. Her father, being the chief of police in a small town down the coast, was extremely overprotective of her when she would visit. Then she went into how she ended up moving in with her father in high school and how close she is to her father now.

"Do you need some pain medicine?" But thank God she was done. I don't think I would have been able to take much more of that torture.

"No. I'm fine."

"No you're not. I can see it in your face. Don't try that with me and don't try to be the tough guy. It will only slow down your progress."

"Ok. How about I don't want any right now, but maybe later?"

"That's better. Thank you."

"Yeah, thanks for making me cry like a girl."

"Ha! We haven't even gotten to the hard stuff yet. That was just the warm up." I groaned at that revelation, "But, that is all we are doing for today. You still up to meeting your son?"

"Yes." She picked up the bed remote, called the nurses' station, and told them to send everyone down. Then she reset the bed so that I was sitting up. It seemed like forever before they appeared in the doorway. The little boy holding Tanya's hand looked up at her and then at me before smiling and breaking loose from her and running for my bed.

TanyaPOV:

As soon as Bella told me that Ethan was here, I was out the door to see him. I had been separated from him more in the last three weeks than I think I had been in the three years since he was born.

I stood there watching him play with his grandparents. He ran at me the moment that he looked up and saw me standing there.

"Mama!" He yelled and I scooped him up and hugged him hard until he started squirming to get down. He ran back to his spot on his blanket and started playing with his cars again. With Ethan thoroughly distracted Carlisle was able to tell me the plan they came up with for taking Ethan to see Edward.

I sat with Ethan and Esme and we played cars with him until Dr. Snow came into the waiting room and nodded at us. Bella was done working with Edward and we could now bring Ethan in.

"Sweetheart," I said taking the car from his hand to get his attention, "Guess what! Daddy woke up and he's waiting to see you."

"Really!" He got to his feet and started jumping around the room.

"Wow! You are really hyper today." I said looking up at my in-laws.

They looked down at me looking contrite. "Sorry," they said unison. I would have to ask them later what that was about because right now I had to attempt to calm my son down before I took him into his father's room.

It only took me a couple minutes to realize that my son was on some kind of major sugar high and the only thing I could do was let him burn off the excess energy.

Unfortunately there was no putting off taking him to see Edward now. I took his hand and led him down the hall. Esme stood on the other side of him and Carlisle was right behind us.

As soon as we walked in the door, Ethan pulled his hand from mine and ran for Edward before I could catch him. Bella caught him before he could climb onto the bed. I came up next to Ethan and squatted down so I was on his level, "Whoa there Ethan. You have to be careful of Daddy's owies."

"I just wanted to hug 'im". I looked up to see Edward trying to peer over the edge of the bed. I looked from Edward to Bella to Dr. Snow. We were all trying to gauge if it would be alright to put him on the bed.

"Please." Edward whispered looking at me. I sighed and nodded.

Bella came down to our level and got Ethan's attention, "Ok. We'll put you on the bed, but you have to try to sit still, okay? Do you think you can do that?" Ethan nodded at her and smiled while trying to scale the bed, but Bella picked him up and placed him on the bed next to Edward on his good side. We were all staring at the two of them like we were expecting this instantaneous miracle to happen. When nothing happened but Edward giving his son a hug the best he could with his casts, we all let out a collective breath.

We all sat around the room watching TV and talking. Ethan was trying to fill Edward in on everything he'd done while Edward was sleeping. Ethan snuggled into Edward's side and before long they fell asleep together on the bed.

"At least he didn't panic like he did with Alice yesterday." Carlisle mused.

"Maybe it was because he was prepared for it. Yesterday we sprung Alice on him with no warning or explanation."

"That could very well be, we'll know more later, after I've had the chance to talk with him about it." Bella spoke up from her chair in the corner. She had been trying to stay out of the way as much as possible while she observed the visit.

Eventually Carlisle and Esme decided to go down for some coffee. Dr. Snow was the next to leave saying that he had other patients to check in on. Bella stayed awhile longer, but eventually had to leave for other patients as well. I asked her about her work while getting to know her a little more. She told me about some of the things that she was trained to handle. She was such a remarkable person with such a kind nature to be able to work with children with autism and learning disorders. She had to leave around lunchtime to make it to appointments with other patients, but promised that she would be back later to look in on Edward.

I spent the remaining time I had alone watching my husband and my son cuddled up on the bed together. I gave myself a little hope that things would be back to normal one day. I was still sitting there watching them when Edward woke up. We sat there staring at each other. I was almost trying to will him remember us with my mind; "You don't remember anything, do you?"

"No. Nothing."

"Alice and Rose called. They will be here later this afternoon. Your lunch should be here soon." He nodded at me. "When Ethan wakes up, I'm going to take him to the park for the rest of the afternoon. I need to spend time with him. I feel like I've been neglecting him lately."

"That's fine."

I reached into my purse and grabbed my phone so I could check for message and missed calls.

"What is that?"

I looked up at him perplexed, "What?"

"That thing in your hand, what is it?"

"My cell phone?"

"What is a cell phone?"

"It's a phone that you can take with you. As long as you're in a place that gets a signal, it will work."

"Can I see it?" I handed him my phone and he turned it over in his hand a few times before asking how it worked. It was then that I realized that Edward didn't just forget the people in his life, but things in his life. The little things, like an I-phone, were new and foreign to him. He jumped when he accidentally turned on the music player and I grabbed it and turned it off before it could wake Ethan. This was something that I was going to have to bring up to Bella and Dr. Snow.

We had to wake Ethan when Edward's lunch arrived so we could situate the table in front of Edward and so that he could have his good arm back to eat. Edward tried to offer Ethan some of his lunch thinking he might be hungry but Ethan refused, it saying he was tired of the 'yucky food' they have here. I promised to take him for pizza for lunch. When we left a few minutes later, Ethan didn't want to leave Edward. I finally promised Ethan that we would be back later in the afternoon and he relented, but not before giving Edward a kiss and hug and making him promise that he wouldn't go back to sleep until he came back.

EPOV:

The nurse was just leaving with my lunch tray when Mom and Dad returned to my room. They had raided the gift shop looking for things to keep my mind occupied. I wanted to roll my eyes and tell them that doing crossword puzzles wasn't going to help me regain my memories any faster. But I was already getting bored just sitting here so at least they'd give me something to do.

It was late afternoon when Rose and Emmett appeared in my doorway. Mom and Dad had filled me in a little on Rose and Emmett. They hadn't been married too long and they did not have any kids yet. I was trying to keep that straight in my head. Alice had two kids, I had one, and Rose had none. You would think that would be easy to remember. Rose came in and sat next me for awhile. It was painfully uncomfortable at first. The last memory I had of her she was a twelve year old girl, and here she was a full grown woman who was married. I didn't know this person at all. I mean, I _knew _her, but I really knew nothing about who she was as a person now.

After almost a half hour of everyone sitting in silence the room phone rang, making us all jump. Rose reached over to table next to me and answered because of course, it was on the side with my broken arm.

"That was Tanya. Ethan is not feeling well so they won't be able to come back today. She said she'll be here in the morning. She needs a good night's sleep in her own bed anyway." I knew that was my fault.

Mom turned to Dad, "I'll call her later and see if she needs us to bring her anything," He nodded at her but kept his eyes on me.

Rose sat back down in her chair and everyone fell silent again until finally Rose spoke up again, "Did you get to see the pictures of my wedding?" I shook my head no. I had not looked at any pictures other than the two I was shown the night before.

"It was a true spectacle that was pure Rose," Dad grimaced.

"I remember you always being a drama queen and throwing fits when things didn't go your way."

"She hasn't outgrown that. Every one of her bridesmaids tried to strangle her at some point. I was even tempted to a couple times," Mom laughed while shaking her head.

"Two bridesmaids actually smacked her," Emmett spoke up with a laugh.

"So what you're saying is that she is the same Rose now that I remember her being at twelve?"

"Yes!" They all answered and Rose just shrugged it off. Now _that_ was the Rose that I remembered. She never cared what anyone thought of her, she just did whatever she wanted to as long as it made her happy.

Alice showed up not long before dinnertime. She came in carrying a baby carrier, but other than that she was alone. "Where's Jasper?" I asked, getting a round of surprised looks from my family, "That is his name, right? Tanya told me you're married to a guy name Jasper when she showed me a picture of Ethan last night. He was in the background." I muttered.

"Oh. He's in the waiting room with Kara. We weren't sure about bringing her in here…whether it was ok or not."

"They let Ethan come in this morning. I behaved myself."

"We don't want to completely overwhelm you, Edward." I knew Dad meant well with that but it didn't make sense.

"What else besides the fact that I have a wife and a kid that are complete strangers to me could you possibly have to tell me?" I snapped.

"Ok. Fair enough. You also need to remember that you have a lot of physical injuries that you are still recovering from and you shouldn't try to do too much."

"I'm stuck in this bed, it's not like I'm going to try to run a marathon or get up and play hide and seek with her, or anything like that. Everyone just needs to stop tip-toeing around me!"

"Your sixteen-year-old attitude is one thing that I most definitely have not missed." The baby in the carrier chose that moment to let everyone know that he was still there and wide awake so Dad offered to go get Jasper while she tended to the baby, and walked out of the room.

Again with the damn silence. They didn't seem to know how to be around me and act normal. The silent tension was amazingly irritating and I was relieved when they left when my dinner was brought in. Mom offered to come back after she and dad had their dinner but I told her that I was tired and probably going to fall asleep soon. It had been a really long day. Dinner was just as bad as breakfast and lunch had been. I was tempted to hide most of it in my empty coffee cup, but decided that would be too childish. I was still picking at it when the nurse from last night came back in.

"Feeling sick?"

"No. It's gross. I can't get myself to eat anymore of this"

"One day awake and you're already complaining about the food!" she teased me. "I saw in your chart that you didn't have any trouble keeping down your breakfast or lunch. Do you still want that burger you asked for last night?"

"_Please!"_ I was not above begging for edible food. She nodded and kept on doing her work. Before she left she asked me if there was anything else I need, so I had her hand me the box of photo albums that Tanya had left behind. I felt the need to try to see what, if anything, I could remember.

An hour later, I was sitting there with one of the books in front of me while watching TV. Everything on there was so foreign to me. I finally started blocking it all out and allowed myself to get lost in my own head. There had been so much thrown at me and I really hadn't sat back and thought any of it through.

I had a wife and a son that obviously relied on me. Tanya told me that she didn't work so I must be the sole income earner of the family. What was going to happen if I didn't get my memories back? How was I going to take care of them? That was what I was supposed to do, right, take care of them?

My musings were interrupted by a knock on the door, "Hey there, Edward! I called to check on you and your nurse told me that you were begging for edible food," Bella said, holding up the bag. "I don't blame you. I can't stand the food here either."

"You didn't have to go out of your way to bring me anything."

"That's ok. I haven't had a chance to get dinner either. Do you mind if I eat with you? I was thinking maybe we could take advantage of the rare opportunity to be alone to talk a bit."

"Yeah. Sure." I grabbed the burger from her and started eating.

"Edward, I want you to remember that my job isn't just about helping you through your physical recovery, but I am also here to help you through the emotional aspects as well. I can be an impartial ear to vent to when things get tough for you. Ok?"

"Yeah. I think today is one of those days."

"What's going on?"

"I don't really know where to start. I get what I'm being told, but it's like unreal most of the time."

"Anything in particular making you feel that way?"

"It's all just crazy. To me, it was like last night I was in high school and partying with my friends, and suddenly I'm sucked through this time warp and being told these two strangers are my wife and son. I don't know anything about them. Am I expected to just go home with them at some point and go on like we're one big happy family? They tell me that she's my wife. I've been telling myself that all day but I just don't get that connection."

"It's only been a day, Edward. Give yourself time to process everything. We are going to take everything one day at a time and we will worry about going home later. You are going to be here with us for a while. Alright?"

"Yeah. This is going to sound crazy, but even though I can't remember anything about Ethan….it was almost like I felt some connection to him."

"I don't think that it's crazy. It's the same concept as love at first sight. Even adoptive parents just know that they love their child just as much as if they were related by blood. Sometimes your heart just knows who you love and sometimes it takes time and patience to realize that you love a person."

Bella and I talked for awhile longer about everything I was feeling; it felt strange to confide in a stranger like that. Mom had always been the one that I turned to when I was confused about things like this. I fell asleep soon after she left, more relaxed than I had been all day.

A/N:

All I can really say about being fail last week is I'm sorry. Those of you that read Living Life have heard my excuses but for those that haven't it boils down to the fact that my son didn't get placed in either high school he wanted but into the most violent in town and we both freaked out and then the conductor for his orchestra was fired one week before their final two concerts. So it was a busy and highly stressful week that left me unable to write. again, I am sorry for skipping an update without warning.I will send a teaser with review replies and I have one rec for this week. Its only on chapter 2 but that chapter was hilarious:

Quickie Mart Cupid by prettykittyartist: (take out the spaces)

http:/www . fanfiction . net/s/7834639/1/

Quickie Marts, flat tires, expensive suits, gangster rap, g-strings and velvet roses. Valentines' Day wasn't going as planned.


	8. Chapter 8

ASL Chapter 8

Breaking

Carlisle POV:

I had never seen my family suffer like we had these last few was worse is worse knowing just how close my son came to dying in that accident. Emmett and I agreed that no one in the family would ever know how bad the damage to the car was. I could not even begin to understand how he survived, I'm only grateful that he did. I don't think that I would ever be able to survive burying one of my children. I know my wife wouldn't survive something like that.

3AM. I laid in the bed for a few moments longer before getting up and making my way downstairs to the kitchen to get something to drink. I didn't have to worry about waking Ethan tonight. He had a tummy ache and a slight fever, so Tanya took him home and stayed there with him instead of retuning to the hospital to be with Edward. It had to be all the excitement of the day. When I talked to her earlier she said he was already feeling better but wanted him to rest in his own bed tonight.

I sat down on the couch with my cup of tea and started flipping through the channels on the TV. After finding nothing but infomercials on I turned on the DVD player only to find that Esme left the disc in from this morning, and I was watching Thomas the Tank Engine.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew someone was jumping on me and giggling. I opened my eyes to find my granddaughter right in my face, "Nana says get up!"

I got up off the couch, taking Kara with me. I found my wife attempting to clean a kitchen that was already spotless. I had been catching her doing stuff like this since the accident. Right now I was considering it was a harmless coping mechanism. If it got any worse, she and I were going to have to sit down and have a long conversation. I didn't want the stress of our lives to break her. I loved her too damn much to sit back and allow that to happen.

"How did we end up with this one?"

"Alice called this morning and asked if we'd mind watching both of them for a bit while she went to a doctor's appointment." She pointed to the baby carrier sitting on the kitchen table that I had missed when I walked into the room. That took me back to the fact that my family was falling apart. I wasn't sleeping, Esme wasn't coping well. I didn't have to ask to know that Alice was not seeing a doctor regarding her physical health. It was no secret that she was trying to take all blame for Edward's accident on herself and it was starting to break her.

"Ahh. Well. the next time you decide to send this monkey to wake me, would you please remind her that I am way too old to be used as a trampoline? What time is it anyway?"

"It's almost noon."

"Why did you let me sleep for so long?"

"I figured you needed the sleep seeing as you have been waking up in the middle night, every night."

"You know about that?"

"Of course I know. If I could hear my children attempting to sneak out of their bedrooms down the hall from me, over your snoring, don't you think that I could hear my husband trying to sneak out of our own bed?" The stern 'you will never be able to fool me' look she gave me made me laugh. I should have known better than to think my wife wouldn't notice.

"Are we waiting for Alice to get back before we head up to the hospital?"

"She is going to meet us there when she's done. So we should get going soon."

I ran upstairs to clean up and get ready to go. I was just about to step into the shower when an idea hit me. I went back out into the hall and yelled downstairs to Esme to call our favorite pizza place and order one of those Hawaiian pizzas that Edward loved as a teenager. I heard her yell back that she would as I turned and went back into the bathroom.

As I stood in the shower, I thought about another situation that I was going to have to deal with soon. A friend of mine, Dr. Doug Jameson, was running the practice for me so that I could be with my family. He had retired last year and although he says his wife is happy to have him out of the house, he doesn't want to work long term again, nor should he be expected to. I was going to have to return to work now that Edward was awake and on the mend, at least physically. The only real problem was that now my own retirement plans were going to be on hold indefinitely, as no one knew when Edward would be able to come back to work or if it was ever going to be possible.

I walked into Edward's hospital room an hour later, with the pizzas and Kara in tow, while Esme took the baby with her and went in search of some plates. I was surprised to find Edward sitting alone in his room. I set the pizzas down on the table that was in front of him and turned to get Kara settled in the chair that Tanya normally sat in.

"We thought you might be getting tired of hospital food already."

"The stuff they serve here is just horrible. Thank God Bella brought me a burger last night. She really saved me from starving all night."

"You saw Bella again last night?"

"Yeah. She brought dinner and we talked about some things that were frustrating me."

"That had to be quite the conversation. Did it help?"

"It did. She at least gave me a good starting place to work through everything. She gave this…" he held up a notebook and a pen. "…and she wants to me to write down everything that I feel the need to talk about so we don't miss anything. I'm supposed to get as detailed as possible about why I feel the need to talk about it and why I think the subject is frustrating or upsetting me. She also wants me to write down anything that seems familiar to me or I think might be a memory so we can discuss it with her first. She said that it was better to explore it with someone unbiased, to avoid someone feeding me information to fit the scenario in their mind, because it may not be a memory at all."

"That's a good idea," I said handing him a plate of pizza now that Esme had joined us. "Dr. Snow said that Bella is the best occupational therapist the hospital has."

Our conversation was interrupted by Tanya and Ethan coming into the room. Ethan looked a little conflicted as he looked between his cousin and best friend, who was sitting in the corner, and his dad in the bed in front of him. He decided pretty quickly that his Dad was more important at the moment and started trying to scale the bed. I reached down and helped Ethan up onto the bed and got him settled next to Edward. The rest of our conversation could wait until the child was asleep and we knew he wasn't going to overhear us. All of us, including the kids, watched as Tanya entered the room in a manner that was extremely cautious. We continued to watch as she awkwardly approached Edward and gave him a kiss on the cheek before grabbing a slice of pizza and carefully taking a place sitting on the foot of his bed.

Tanya POV:

I was so exhausted by the time I got to the hospital. I had spent the morning cleaning my house that was quickly becoming a 'to be condemned' area. Between the cleaning and Ethan whining and having a fit about wanting to see his daddy right now. As soon as I pulled the last load of laundry out of the dryer and had the clothes folded we could be on our way to the hospital. I was trying to figure out how we were going to work around Edward's cast when they finally let him come home. The stairs were going to be too dangerous with casts on his arm and his leg. Maybe he could sleep on the couch? Or I could get a roll-away bed that was big enough for both of us to sleep on. I hated not having him next to me at night. I was getting frustrated because I thought my nights of sleeping alone ended when his residency ended.

I had just finished packing Ethan's toy bag and had just pulled out the thermal bag to pack some snacks for him when Esme called to tell me that they were picking up pizza for everyone for lunch. It was always nice when there was something that I could forget about. There were so many things that I would love to let someone else worry about for a change.

That thought made me look over at the stack of bills sitting on the table. I sighed and realized that I would have to pay them when I got home tonight. The money would have to come out of our saving this time. I couldn't do that for long. It had been almost a month since the accident, and if Edward didn't gain his memories back soon so he could return to work I was going to have to find a job to pay the bills.

We entered Edward's room and Ethan immediately ran for Edward. Bella had told me that one of the best things I could do for Edward was to treat him the way that I normally would. I needed to try to act normal around him. It wasn't that I didn't want to. I wanted everything to be normal again. I wanted him to look at me the way that he used to, the way that left no doubt in my mind that he was in love with me. Now he just looked at me with curiosity and wonder. I wanted him to want me again. I mean physically. It had been so long since we were together. I briefly entertained a fantasy of sending everyone home so that I could try to jog his memory by climbing into that bed with him.

I sighed and dropped that thought. It would be a while before his injuries were healing enough for anything like that. I shuffled across the room and placed a quick kiss to his cheek and sat at the foot of his bed. I needed to be close to my husband. I missed him so much. I missed him holding me and the innocent touches as well as the intimate ones. I needed him so much that I felt like I was starting to suffocate.

Esme handed me a plate of pizza but I really wasn't hungry. After ten minutes of picking at it I gave up and set in on the table in front of Edward and excused myself to go to the bathroom. I hesitated to return to Edward's room when I was done so I wandered off to the cafeteria. I got myself a large mocha as a treat and took off for the outdoor walking gardens. I found a bench, sat down, and allowed myself to get lost in my thoughts and worries about the future of my family.

What was I going to do for a job? I had never had a job in my life. My parent's supported me through college until I married Edward and then he took care of me. But now he couldn't work and he needed me to take care of him. Everything was now my responsibility and I knew that I wasn't going to be able to put it off for long. But there was so much to consider, like what was I going to do with Ethan while I worked? What if I couldn't find a job that paid enough to allow me to keep up the mortgage on the house? What if we lost our home? I knew that Carlisle and Esme would take us in but I didn't want it to get to that point. With my limited job skills and my non existent job history. I realized that the fact of that matter was that I might have to seriously consider taking on two jobs to make ends meet and be able pay all the hospital bills that the insurance wasn't going to cover.

A hand on my shoulder startled me out of my thoughts. I looked up to see Bella standing there holding a Kleenex out to me. I hadn't even realized that I had started crying. "Hey, why don't we take a walk and talk for a bit?"

"You wouldn't mind?"

"I am here for all of you, Tanya, not just Edward."

We spent the beginning of our walk in complete silence. Then Bella started pointing out some of the flowers that were her favorites. Then she told me about how her first boyfriend in junior high gave her a dead cactus that he had obviously dug out of his yard when he came to pick her up for their first date. "I swear, the damn thing smelled like it had come from a litter box! I handed it to my mom who told me that she would take care of it. I never saw the thing or the boy again. And seriously, how the hell do you kill a cactus?" I was laughing so hard that I had to take a seat on the bench that we were passing.

But it was enough to get me to open up with her. Once I got started talking I just couldn't get myself to shut up. I even told her about the miscarriage. We talked as we walked around the garden and before I really knew it, we had been there for a couple of hours and made a couple of passes around the whole garden. She had managed to calm me down quite a bit. She told me there was a lot that I could do with my degree in education. She had a friend who worked as a corporate trainer. While corporate trainers got paid a lot better than teachers in public schools did, I doubted that it was going come close to what Edward was bringing home as a doctor. I hadn't really solved my problems, but just getting them off my chest with someone made me feel a lot better about the near future.

Before we got on the elevator to go up to Edward's room she handed me a piece of paper with her cell phone and home phone number on it with the instructions to call her day or night if I needed to talk.

When we walked into Edward's room I found Edward asleep on the bed, Ethan and Kara playing in the corner, and Rose and Alice talking quietly in the corner of the room. "It's about time you got back here. Alice and I made a decision. The four of us are going out tonight and have a girl's night out. We are going to do dinner and maybe a movie. Or maybe a bar. Yeah, I think we need to get drunk. But no loud clubs with drunks trying to cop a feel; I am totally too old for that now. " She looked over at her sister, "You get to be the designated driver since you can't drink."

"I can't go out. I have Ethan. And I don't want him to have to sleep away from home again. He's barely slept in his own bed since the accident."

"Jasper is going watch him and he'll babysit at your house so Ethan can sleep in his own bed tonight." Alice told me in a tone that said that it was a final decision with no room for arguments or negotiations. I nodded my agreement and went to sit by the window. Edward's room overlooked the garden that Bella and I had just been walking through. I wondered briefly if they had seen us and that was what spurred them on to plan a girl's night out. I let that train of thought drop. The more I sat there thinking about it and listening to the girls make plans the more excited I got to get to dress up and go out as though I didn't have a care in the world.

Bella grabbed Edward's chart off the door and started copying things down into her notebook. She she started to flip back and forth through the pages of her notes and the hospital charts making notes on both before putting the charts back and excusing herself from the room saying she had an appointment with another client to get to. Before she left she asked me to let the nurses know when he was awake so that she could come back to work with him.

A few hours later found me in my bedroom while Ethan played with his trucks on the bed behind me. It seemed like such a normal thing to do. In fact, it was something that I would do often. Edward and I had always made sure that we had one night a week that was just for us. Even if we had to do our date night at home because we couldn't afford to go out, we would dress up and make the night as special as possible.

I was pulled out of my thoughts when I heard someone come in the front door. I knew that it had to be one of my sisters-in-law. They knew to just come in when we had plans to go out. I could hear someone protesting as they came up the stair, "Really Rosalie, I shouldn't come up here. She doesn't know me that well and it's a little presumptuous."

"Trust me. She won't care. I barge up here all the time."

"That's different. You are family and I am just her husband's physical therapist."

I peeked out of my bedroom in time to see Rose wheel around and set Bella straight, "You may be Tanya's husband's therapist at the hospital but tonight you are _my_ husband's friend and therefore a friend of mine. You got it?"

"Yeah. If you're sure."

As Rose started to growl I figured I should step in and put an end to the debate, "I'm in here. I just have to finish my hair and I'll be ready to go. Where is Emmett?"

"He's downstairs in the kitchen. He decided to get started cleaning that fish tank like he promised." Rose said as she went to sit on the bed.

"That thing was his idea so it should be his responsibility."

"What kind of fish is it?" Bella spoke up still standing by the door.

"It's a go'fish. His name is Jacob." Ethan said as he jumped into his aunts open arms.

"He looks so much like Edward." Bella commented.

"He acts just like his father too," Alice chimed in as she appeared at the doorway next to Bella. She came waltzing in, pulling Bella along with her. She practically forced Bella to sit down when they reached the bed. I felt sorry for Bella. She looked a little uncomfortable and I could understand, I think I would be uneasy about being dragged into a stranger's bedroom the first time I came to visit their house.

A couple of hours later found us sitting at the restaurant drinking and laughing as Bella told us yet another story of Emmett from high school. With the exception of Alice, we were all extremely drunk by now and having the best time that I could remember having in a very long time.

A/N:

Happy Saturday. First I want to say thanks to Sweetpea123 for betaing this for me. But I did make a few changes after she cleaned it up so all mistakes are mine. Happy St. Patty's day to everyone. IF you go out please be safe. It's actually my sister's birthday and she had so many green birthday parties that she detests the color now. LOL! Reviews will get teasers!


	9. Chapter 9

ASL Chapter 9

Three Weeks Later

EPOV: 

Thank God! They were finally letting me out of here tomorrow. I wasn't exactly comfortable about going home with Tanya but everyone just assumed that is where I would naturally want to go, and I didn't want to argue. I had caused enough problems by getting into the accident in the first place and I really felt that I owed it to Tanya to make it work. Even though we spent quite a few nights over the last couple of weeks sitting together and talking, she was still pretty much a complete stranger to me. They could throw picture after picture in my face and all it was ever going to do was irritate me more. No matter how hard I tried or they pushed I just could not remember anything. I ended up ordering everyone out of my room a couple of times. I made Rose cry by telling her to get out and leave me the fuck alone while having a minor meltdown.

That got Dad and Emmett marching up to the hospital to lecture me about my attitude and they weren't going to stand for me taking my frustrations out on anyone in the family. Bella wasn't very happy with me about that either. It seems that her and Rose were becoming good friends. At least she was more understanding about what I was feeling. I have no idea if they told Tanya about that incident or not. She wasn't there for the majority of the day, she apologized saying that she'd had a meeting to attend. She didn't say anything about it when she got there.

She did, however, tell me later that night when we were alone that the meeting was really a job interview with an elementary school in the area. She said they told her they'd let her know in a few days. I overheard her talking to Mom and Dad when they thought that I was asleep about the fact that she didn't want to go through all of our savings and needed to find a job. Mom was upset at that but promised that she would help out and take care of Ethan whenever she needed. Dad had gone back to work. I felt horrible and guilty about that too. He had had plans to retire and I had been taking over his practice and now that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

Pretending to be asleep is how I found out that they were keeping a lot of things from me, like Alice being in therapy because she thought my accident was her fault. That was just crazy. She had nothing to do with it. The fault lay totally and completely with me. I knew that I had screwed up by getting into that accident. There was no way that I was ever going to make up for the pain that I had caused my family, but I was going to try. Especially to Tanya, as even I could see that my inability to remember her and our life together was hurting her more than she would say.

It wasn't that I wasn't trying; my frustration came from the fact that they were pushing me so hard and it was getting us nowhere. They could tell story after story but it never made a difference. I was beginning to think that it was never going to make a difference. I had to quit voicing that opinion around most of my family though. Stating that I thought that the memory loss was going to be permanent either angered the family member I was talking to, or made them cry. The only three people that I could talk to about it were Bella and Dr. Snow and Emmett. I knew that Dr. Snow was starting to agree with me, she even told me that the longer I went without regaining my memories the less likely it was that I would ever remember. In fact, she had had her concerns since I was brought in. Permanent memory loss wasn't unheard of with the severe head injury that I'd suffered.

They did finally go over the extent of my physical injuries. My left arm and leg were both broken in multiple places. I was going to have to wear the casts for a few more weeks. The only way that I was able to get up and move around was to have someone physically there to help me use a wheel chair. Bella had been having Tanya stay during my physical therapy sessions to practice helping me from the bed to the chair and back again. Getting in and out of a car was going to be another story. Bella told her that there were services with handicap busses that could pick me up and bring me in for all my appointments, and if we wanted to go that route she could arrange it.

The first few times that Bella had Tanya try to move me they showed her what to do and then Bella and two orderlies stood by ready to help if necessary. It was difficult for her to summon the upper body strength needed to support me, but like Bella said, most of the time Tanya was going to be the only adult there to help me so she had to know she could do it on her own. One of those first times we practiced, as she helped me get turned in the bed so that I was sitting on the edge my hospital gown came open and I accidentally flashed her.

"I'm sorry." I muttered while quickly covering myself up.

"It's fine, Edward. It's nothing that I haven't become very intimately familiar with over the last few years."

"Yeah, but that was…never mind." The look on her face stopped me from saying anymore. But she knew the truth even if no one wanted to say it out loud or acknowledge it; that it was different because that person was not me. There was this look of sadness in her eyes and this awkwardness between us that I knew we had to find a way to break through. I knew that it would all rest with me to find the way to fix this. It was like being in some kind of arranged marriage where you pledge your life to a complete stranger and then get to know them and hope that you fall in love, or at least hope that you can tolerate living with them. I just had to try harder to remember her. Dr. Snow told them to try to refrain from telling me anymore stories about my past, but to let me try to remember things using the photos and videos as prompts.

Tanya helped me maneuver until I was in the chair and ready to go, "Well done you two. You work well together," Bella commented as she made notes on my chart. "We're done for now so why don't you go take your afternoon stroll through the garden."

"Can we stop at the gift shop while we're downstairs? I want chocolate."

"I want chocolate too!" Ethan said running over from his toys in the corner.

"Oh my God!" she laughed. I did like seeing her smile. Tanya was pretty already but when she smiled she was radiant. "Fine, we can get you both some chocolate. But you need to hold my purse because I can't push you and carry it at the same time." Ethan went around to the back of the chair to 'help' her push me to the elevator. That was his job. He ran off the other day and when Tanya took off after him she left me stuck on the elevator. I thought it was actually funny as hell. Or maybe I have just spent way too much time stuck in that room. Unfortunately the panel with the buttons was just out of my reach so I just had to wait until someone came onto the elevator willing to help me. And I had no idea what to make of these earplugs that everyone seemed to be wearing until I realized that there were wires attaching the ear plugs to these…well…things. One lady had one that looked like Tanya's phone, and then I remembered that those phone things could play music and movies as well. That was overwhelming to discover too. All these new gadgets I had never seen before were so perplexing to me. I had made everyone in my family; the nurses, Dr. Snow, and even Bella show me their phones. One day Alice pulled this rectangular object out of her bag, swiped her hand around the thing a few times and then handed it to the kids. A few seconds later a lot of noise came from it. "It's Toy Story 3." She took it back and swiped her hand across it again making the volume go down. "It's one of their favorite movies."

"What is that thing anyway?"

"Oh, it's called a Nook tablet."

"That's what mom has, right?"

"Yes."

"Do I have these gadgets too?"

"Yes. You were always the first to get these things. Here," she said reaching into her bag and pulling out another one of those things out of her bag and came to sit with me on the bed, "I brought Jasper's with me too." I spent hours that afternoon exploring that thing until the battery died.

Back to getting lost on the elevator, I was 'lost' on that thing for a good ten minutes before the door finally opened and I found Dad standing there looking frantic. A security guard behind him grabbed his walkie-talkie and announced that I had been found. Dad took me back to my room saying that I had had enough excitement for one day. When Tanya came into my room a few minutes after we returned she kept apologizing and crying. I told her not to worry about it. I was fine and that she couldn't help it. She had to go after Ethan before he got lost or hurt. By the end of the day everyone was laughing at my elevator adventure. I wrote in my journal that Bella gave me that night that my little elevator ride did more to relieve the stress and frustration that I had been feeling than anything else had. That had been an awesome day.

I loved the afternoon strolls we took through the gardens. It got me out of the room and out in the fresh air for at least an hour a day. That and I could usually talk Tanya into stopping at the gift shop and picking up candy or a soda. I hated having to return to that hospital room after my walk each day. It was like being a prison that gets a small taste of freedom only to have it yanked away from him again.

Tomorrow would be scary. I would have to face a world that I knew little about but I was eager and very ready to get out of this hospital. And even though it was all overwhelming, I was ready to deal with it, thanks to Bella.

I did not get my walk today. Bella hadn't shown up to with me and she was quite late. I rang the nurse's station several times until they finally told me that she had called, she was stuck in traffic but was on her way. I had no choice but to just sit and wait for her to show up.

I was watching TV and still waiting for Bella to show up while listening to my parents talking when a strange man and woman walked into the room. They look like they were unsure whether they should be there or not. I had the brief thought that I had no clue who these people were. Then I snorted in laughter at that thought. Even I did know them I would not remember them. It hit me that they might be my in-laws but I quickly discounted that theory. If they were Tanya's parents she would have told me that they were coming. Besides she looked just as confused as I did at their appearance in my room.

"Sorry to disturb you, but my daughter asked us to meet her up here."

"Chief Swan! Long time no see! I've missed hanging out with you." Emmett shouted happily as he and Rose walked into the room. So this was Bella's father.

The poor man just closed his eyes and started muttering, "No. Please God no."

Bella POV:

I never made it to Forks to see my Dad. I had another new patient that I was assigned to and I was just too busy to take off for a weekend. Dad understood. He was always the same way, when you work serving the people like we do, the job must always comes first.

He was driving up here today to spend the weekend with me. He was bringing his new girlfriend with him. I was speechless when he told me that. This was the first woman that I knew of that he had dated since my mother left him when I was a baby. I'm sure there have been dates and women that he's done things with that I really don't want to know about, but he's never talked about them to me, let alone opted to drive four hours to present them to me as his girlfriend. This was serious.

Since I had to work I told him to just meet me at the hospital and then we'd dump the cruiser at my apartment before going out to dinner. He said that he wouldn't be here until six so we agreed for them to meet me in Edward's room, knowing that I would be just about done there when they got here.

That was before I got delayed at the elementary school working with little Amelia. She was having a bad day. Some older boys had been running through the halls and accidentally knocked her down. They didn't mean to do and they felt horrible for upsetting her. I do think they felt even worse after they were assigned detentions for running in the halls. I finally had decided to call her mother and her psychiatrist and have them come down to help. By the time that we finally had her calmed down, school had been out for awhile and all the other students and staff had gone home.

To make matters worse, there was road construction on the highway back to the hospital and I got stuck in traffic for nearly an hour. I pulled into the hospital with a half hour to spare before my dad got here. I still had to work with Edward a little before I could leave again for the night. He was being released in the morning and I knew him well enough to know that he was uneasy about it. I also had to set up times for him to come back in for his physical therapy sessions.

I didn't even bother stopping by my office to drop off my bags, I just took everything with me up to Edward's room so I could just leave again when I was done. I walked into the room and was surprised to find my Dad standing there glaring at Emmett. I wanted to smack myself on the forehead. It had never dawned on me that Emmett might show up at the same time Dad did. I should have thought of that. I should have had them wait for me in the cafeteria or something like that. I had been warned by several staff members that it was never safe to leave my office door unlocked, even if I did lock all of my valuables in the desk. It was too easy for people to wander around and steal from offices; I guess it happens all the time.

I decided that I should probably intervene before Dad had an aneurism or attacked Emmett or something, "Dad, you're here early; I wasn't expecting you here until six."

"Yeah, well, it was quiet at the station so I took off early and there was virtually no traffic on the highway in."

"That's because they were all on the highway that I had to take to get from the school back here. That's why I am running late." I looked around the room and noticed that the majority of Edward's family was standing there watching us, "Have you been introduced?" When Dad and Sue shook their heads no I went on to introduce them, "and you already know Emmett, and this is his wife, Rose."

"I'm sorry." He said holding his hand out to shake Rose's hand.

"Dad!" I admonished him. At least he had the decency to look sorry that he just insulted my patient's family member.

I was embarrassed until Rose started laughing, "He can be a bit trying to a person's patience."

"I'm sorry but I do need to work with Edward for a bit before I can go."

"Come on, Chief. I'll buy you a cup of coffee while we reminisce about the good ole days." Emmett threw his arm around Dad's shoulder and started leading him out of the room. I mouthed an 'I'm sorry' at Dad as they left the room. The rest of Edward's family quickly volunteered to go along. I hoped that someone in that group would be able to keep my Dad from killing Emmett.

As soon as we were alone, I lowered Edward's bed and started working with his non broken leg. This was the time that Edward usually used to talk about the things that he had written in the journal I had given him. He told me once that concentrating on other subjects helped keep his mind off the pain that I was inflicting on him. But today he was quiet and seemed lost in his own thoughts. When he did finally say something, it wasn't about his journal, "So how do you and your dad know Emmett?"

"We're both from Forks. We went to high school together. I actually tutored him."

"Your Dad doesn't seem to like him." I told him how Emmett lived to cause my Dad trouble back then.

Then he got quiet for a minute before he quietly said, "What if she wants to have sex?" 

Ok. I was not expecting the conversation to take that turn, "It's going to be a while before you are well enough for that."

"But then…what if she wants to."

"I don't think I understand what you're asking."

"What if she wants to and I'm not ready to go there with her. I mean, I am her husband and she's going to expect it, right?"

"Edward, the right to say "no" goes both ways. If you are not ready tell her that."

"But it would hurt her feelings, right? And probably make her cry."

"Probably. I would definitely be careful about how you word it though."

"I'm not saying that I'd never want to. It's just that right now, I don't think I could. I feel like an ass because if she's my wife I am supposed to love and cherish her, and I just don't feel it." He said more to his hands than to me.

"Edward, look at me." I waited until he looked directly at me, "Do you want to go home with Tanya or would you rather go to your parent's house?"

"I don't really have a choice where I go."

"Yes, you do. You can go anywhere you want."

"But everyone expects me to go with Tanya and Ethan."

"Yes, they do but that doesn't mean that you have to."

"I have to. Ethan is excited that I am coming home. I can't hurt him like that. He's just a baby and he would never understand. I have to go with them."

"I understand that you don't want to hurt either of them, Edward, but just know that you have other options. But you need to find a time to talk to Tanya about how you feel…about everything."

"Yeah that is easier said than done. I mean I should want to…with her, right? I've obviously been with her before, so why do I feel so weird about it?"

"I think that you are trying too hard too soon. You're overwhelming yourself with what you think you should feel. Just relax and wait and see what happens once you are home and your life gets back to normal. Well, as close to normal as you can get at this point."

He and I had already talked about his feelings for his wife. I knew that he was frustrated. In his mind he was a sixteen year old boy, living with his parents and sisters, and trying to survive high school. Then he woke up one morning in an alternate universe where he was suddenly an adult with a wife and kid to take care of. The kicker was that he had no way of actually taking care of them. Whoever said that an education was the one thing that no one could ever take from you obviously never imagined a situation like this. We had yet to tell him that unless he was able to regain his memories and prove his competency there was no way that he was going to be able to practice medicine again. Carlisle and Tanya both knew that Dr. Snow and I had to submit reports to the licensing board regarding Edward's accident and severe memory loss. They both understood that our hands were tied by legal obligation. It didn't mean that we didn't feel horrible for taking away something that we all knew he'd worked so hard to achieve.

A/N: 

Happy Saturday! Thanks to Sweetpea123 for Betaing this for me. I made some changes after she gave it back to me so any mistakes or errors are my fault!


	10. Chapter 10

ASL Chapter 10

EPOV:

Tanya pulled into the driveway of a beautiful two-story home in a nice neighborhood. I looked around as I waited for Tanya to get my wheelchair out of the trunk and come around to help me out of the car. There were quite a few neighbors attempting to covertly watch us from their windows. A few blatant people were standing on their lawns openly staring at us. It was a little rude and it was making me self-conscious. "Ignore them right now, Edward," Tanya whispered to me as she set up the chair. "They all know you and have been worried about you, about all of us."

I noticed that a temporary wheelchair ramp had been placed leading up the stairs to the front door. I could only assume that it was placed here specifically for me. I wouldn't really know because she could have pulled into any of the driveways on this street, or any other street for that matter, and I wouldn't have known any better.

The people continued to gawk as Tanya got Ethan out of the car and pushed me up to the front door and into the house. You would think that at least one of the men that were watching would have come over and offered to help her. That was even ruder than just staring at us arriving like I was some kind of circus attraction.

It was a Friday morning so most of my family was at work. I was glad that they weren't here right now. I really didn't need any more of an audience for this. They were all coming over later for dinner and we would have a little homecoming party then. Tanya got me into the house and took me straight to the living room. I sat there taking in the room. There was a bed in the corner. Tanya saw where I was looking and smiled, "We all figured that you weren't going to be able to get up the stairs to our bedroom. So Emmett and Jasper came over last night and moved the bed down here for us. When you can safely navigate the stairs they'll put it back for us."

Unsure of what I could say to that, I just nodded my head. As I sat there in the chair Tanya just stood there watching me take everything in. After a minute, I stopped looking around the room and started watching Ethan play with his toys.

After sitting there for what seemed like a hell of a long time, I turned to Tanya who was still standing next to me, "Where is the kitchen? I want to get something to drink."

"What do you want? I'll get it for you."

"Thank you but you really need to relax. You are making me really nervous and antsy just standing there like that. I don't know what I want but I know that I want to do it for myself."

She sighed, "Edward how are you going to do that when you can't move the chair on your own." I hated that. There was very little that I could do for myself at this point.

"I made a fresh pitcher of tea this morning before I came to get you. Would you like a glass? Maybe a glass of juice?"

"I'm an adult over the age of twenty one and I am in my own home, right?"

"Yes," she said, obviously suspicious of where I was taking this.

"Can I have a beer? Maybe something with tequila in it?"

"It's not even noon and you don't like hard liquor."

"Maybe the old me didn't. But it could be something that I would like now."

"Well, you can't mix alcohol with the pain medicine you are on so the answer is still no to any type of liquor."

"Fine, I'll take the iced tea then."

As soon as Tanya disappeared into the kitchen Ethan came running at me with a game in his hand. It was the game Memory. "You want to play Memory with me?" I asked him.

"Grandpa and Miss Bella said you lost yours. So you can have mine."

"When did they say that to you?"

"I hearded them talk about you the day you made Aunt Rose cry. Mommy says only bad boys would make a girl cry. Dat's why I hafta be nicer to Kara. I don't like it when mommy puts me in the time-out corner. She looks so sad when she does it."

I had no idea what to say to him. I decided that it was best not to make a big deal out of it right now. "How about if we share the game? I'll even let you keep it in your room so it stays safe and I don't lose this one. Ok?"

"Ok, Daddy."

"Are you sure you don't want to play the game with me?" He dropped the game on my lap and went around to the back of my chair and started trying to push it saying that we always play in the dining room. I yelled for Tanya to come help. She told Ethan to go set the game up and we'd be right behind him.

We spent the next couple of hours taking turns playing memory with Ethan. I had no idea if this was something that we would normally do with him, but he was so excited to get our undivided attention directed to him. He was really good at playing this game. I could see why Tanya had him enrolled to start preschool soon. This child was really smart.

I kept playing with him after Tanya excused herself to make us lunch. It was going to be so nice to know that I was always going to get edible food to eat again. I couldn't believe hotdogs and French fries could be so delicious. To be honest, it was not like all that I had for the last three weeks was hospital food. Mom, Dad, Tanya, and even Bella would sneak me in treats, but more often than not I was stuck with the hospital's version of food.

After lunch I was tired from all the excitement of the morning so Tanya helped me onto the bed in the in the corner of the living room. I was glad that they had set it so that I could see the TV from there, even if I had to watch this annoying cartoon with this talking yellow sponge whose laugh made me want to throw something at the TV.

I rolled over so that I was lying on my undamaged side and attempting to tune out the annoying show on the TV so that I could fall asleep. I was just about to doze off when I felt the bed shift. Then there was pain as Ethan slipped as he was climbing over me and accidently kicked my broken arm. Then he snuggled into my side and closed his eyes. I closed my eyes again and this time I was able to fall asleep.

I woke a couple of hours later to the sound of Mom and Dad arriving at the house. They were attempting to be quiet but were failing miserably I rolled over onto my back and attempted to sit up. This got everyone's attention on me, alerting them that I was up. Mom ran over and started trying to help me sit up.

"Will you get my wheelchair? I want to go sit on the couch."

"Are you sure you won't be more comfortable sitting in the chair?" Dad asked me, bringing the chair and taking Mom's place in front of me to help me into it.

"No. I want to sit on the couch. That way if my leg hurts too much I can turn and prop it up."

"Oh! That's a good idea." Mom said as she ran ahead of us to the couch and started fluffing the throw pillows. They weren't exactly trying to be pushy or hover, I think they just didn't know what else to do for me.

"Where is Ethan? He was lying next to me when I fell asleep."

"He's probably in the kitchen helping Tanya with dinner. He likes tearing up the lettuce for the salad." I nodded my head and braced myself for Dad helping me to lift myself out of the chair to sit on the couch.

I turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels but not really finding anything on that I was interested in watching, so I turned it off again and laid my head against the back of the couch and sighed.

It was only four in the afternoon and the rest of the family wasn't due to arrive for a couple of hours. Dad asked me when my next therapy session with Bella was and how I was going to get there. I told them that it was in a couple of days and Tanya was driving, but we'd appreciate it if Mom would watch Ethan for us so we wouldn't have to worry about him getting bored. Mom agreed right away that there was no sense in dragging him along.

Ethan came bounding into the room a few minutes later, "We're haffing barbies for dinner!" He announced happily while crawling onto the couch next to me.

"We're having 'barbies'?" I asked him. "Are you sure about that?"

"Uh huh! Mommy gonna put lots of Barbie sauce on da legs. I hafta pee." He told us as he scooted off the couch and ran upstairs for the bathroom. The three of us sat there for a moment staring at each other, utterly confused until Mom finally got up and went into the kitchen to find out what Ethan was talking about.

Mom came back out of the kitchen a minute later laughing. She told us that we were having BBQ chicken legs for dinner. We all had a laugh at that. When Ethan did make it back downstairs I turned the TV back on for him. Luckily that sponge creature wasn't on again. I flipped to PBS and, "Is that Ringo Starr from the Beatles?" I asked my parents.

"No Daddy! That's Mr. Conductor!" From the tone in his voice I guess I should have known that.

"He was only on the show for one season," Dad told me quietly, "And then he was replaced by George Carlin." That got my attention. Who in their right mind would cast George Carlin in a children's show! I may only be sixteen but even I knew how vulgar he could get. He was funny as hell but not appropriate for children at all. This new world I was thrown into was unreal.

It was a cute show and by the end of it Ethan had moved to the floor and gotten out a bunch trains that resembled the ones on the show. After that episode was over Ethan ran to the TV, looked through a bunch of cases, and then handed one to me and asked me to turn it on. It had those trains on it so I assumed that it was another episode. Dad took the case from me and put the disk in for Ethan. Even if I could move to make it over to the TV to put it in, I wouldn't have a clue how to work the damn machine. I was basically a useless lump at this point. I don't think that I was ever going to be able to get used to all of this new technology.

Ethan made us watch several more episodes until he finally got up and ran off upstairs again. He was halfway up the stairs when Dad yelled at him to come back and put his trains away. He grumbled a bit about it but did what he was told.

A half hour later Alice and Jasper showed up with their kids. Alice went into the kitchen, holding what looked like a bakery box, while Jasper flopped down on the other end of the couch, putting the baby carrier down at his feet. He took the blanket off the top to reveal the sleeping baby boy inside. He and Dad got engrossed in a discussion about local politics that I did not understand so I tuned them out and started flipping through channels again. This time I found an episode of Seinfeld on. Now that was something that I remembered.

They sat there like that until Tanya stuck her head into the living room and asked Dad and Jasper if they would mind getting the grill set up and started. Of course she wouldn't ask me for help. I couldn't even get myself a glass of tea. How was I supposed to be of any use? I was just a burden.

Emmett and Rose showed up while I was sitting there, wallowing on the couch. "Where is everyone?" She asked, looking at me sitting alone on the couch.

"The useful people are getting dinner ready. I'm just the useless lump stuck alone on the couch."

"Come on, Grumpy." Emmett said, coming over to me and leaning down to pull me off the couch.

"What are you doing?" I demanded.

"I'm getting you off of the couch. You are injured. You may be injured but you are not going to start wallowing. I won't allow it. Neither will anyone else in the family. There are thing that you could and should be doing to help with dinner. So let's go!" He carefully put me in the chair and pushed me through the kitchen and out onto a back patio. He pushed the chair up to the table and then he turned and went back into the house. When he came back out a few minutes later he was carrying a cutting board, some vegetables, and a bowl. He placed them all on the table in front of me, "Start chopping."

"Emmett. I only have one good arm. How am I supposed to cut vegetables?"

"There are a lot of people out in the world that have permanently lost an arm and they have to figure out how to cope to survive. It's going to be frustrating and it will be a process of trial and error, but when you do figure it out, that fact that you did it yourself will be immensely rewarding."

I tentatively picked up a zucchini and turned it so that it was laying long ways across the cutting board. I picked up the knife and tried to slice it but it rolled away from me. I brought it back and tried cutting it again. After the third time that it rolled I came up with a brilliant idea. We used to have a neighbor that would work on cars and when he did he'd always put wooden blocks behind the tires to keep the call from rolling. I asked if someone would go inside and get me four forks. I placed them two on each side, tines down, against the uncontrollable vegetables and started cutting. It worked well enough that I was able to cut the vegetable by myself, even if they did look like they were hacked up by a serial killer. I managed to cut the yellow squash the same way even though they didn't roll because of the way that they were shaped. The onion, however, was impossible for me to get so I handed the knife to my dad and rested my now aching arm. Emmett was right, though. Emmett was right; it did feel really good to be able to do something for myself. If felt amazing to be useful for once.

I stayed outside while Dad, Emmett, and Jasper fired up the grill and cooked the dinner. It was a hot night but at least there was a breeze blowing. And we were even luckier that the wind was blowing the smoke from the grill away from us because there was a lot of smoke coming from it.

Dad was the one that was really managing the grill while Emmett and Jasper chased Ethan and Kara around the backyard. It was nice to see Ethan having fun, and his screams and laughter made me smile. I was having fun. I had also been sneaking sips of Dad's beer when he had his back turned. I figured a few sips wouldn't cause a reaction with my meds and I could probably skip them all together if I really wanted to.

When Dad finally proclaimed that the chicken and vegetables were done, the women came out with the side dishes they had been working on in the kitchen and the plates and flatware that we would need to eat outside.

We continued to sit outside until the sun went down and the children fell asleep in their chairs. Dad carried Ethan upstairs to his room while Jasper carried Kara to their car and carefully buckled her into her car seat without waking her up.

Everyone hugged me the best they could and told me that they were so happy that I was home. After everyone was gone, Tanya said that she was going to run upstairs for a shower and asked if I wanted her to help me take a bath tonight. I told her that I probably should take one but if she would just get me some hot water and soap I could take care of it myself. Bella had showed me how to be able to bathe myself while sitting in my chair. The only thing that I would need help with is taking my shorts off. I needed Tanya to help me stand and while I balanced myself on my good leg and kept a towel wrapped my waist with my good arm.

As soon as I was seated in my chair again, she excused herself to go upstairs for her shower. I quickly washed myself as well as I could with only one working arm. There were two basins of water, one with soapy water to wash and one with clean water to rinse. I decided that it would probably be a good idea to try to wash my hair while I was at it. I made quite a bit of mess with the water, but I think I did a halfway decent job getting my hair clean. I wrapped the towel around my waist again and waited for Tanya to return.

She brought me a clean pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt when she came back downstairs. The shorts were the only thing that I owned that we could get to go over the cast without resorting to cutting the material. I couldn't even get my boxer briefs on so I was going without those for a couple more weeks. I tried my hardest to keep myself covered while she helped me get them on. It was awkward and I knew that it upset her to an extent that I insisted on keeping myself covered, but I just didn't feel right exposing myself to her yet.

If I thought that letting her dress me was awkward, it was nothing compared to when she helped me into the bed and then went around the bed and climbed in the other side. I didn't think about that. It never hit me until now that she actually intended to sleep in the bed with me. I had never spent the night with a girl in bed with me. I had had sex a couple of times with Lauren, but we both dressed when it was over and I went home to sleep in my bed alone. I didn't know how I was going to relax enough to actually fall asleep. What if I snored? What if she did? I would be stuck here with no escape! I sighed. This was going to be a really, really long night.

A/N:

Whew! I really was sure that I was not going to get my updates done in time this week. It was totally me being distracted by the new Black dagger Brotherhood book that came out Tuesday and then I somehow email only half the chapter to sweetpea123 to beta. But she was all shades of amazing by getting the second half done for me Friday morning and I suddenly had some talkative characters. So today she gets Chapter 11 of which I am offering a teaser if you review. (if you don't want a teaser let me know in the review)

I am going to get my garden started this weekend. I am going to try to grow corn, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions. I've had great luck with the tomatoes and cucumbers for years. I won't do pumpkins again. They took over the whole lawn and we got strange looks from the neighbors…like they didn't know that we were insane before that!


	11. Chapter 11

ASL 11

Time moves on

TPOV:

One week. My husband has been home for one whole week and the only difference is that Edward has been getting quieter and more reserved and more irritated since he came home. He tries to hide the irritation from Ethan and me, but I see it. I just don't know what to do for him so I just ignore it. The only person that he really seems to be willing to talk to is Emmett. Everyone keeps telling me 'just give him time'. I know that they are right but it doesn't mean that I am sick of hearing it.

Thanks to Emmett, Edward has really taken to liking to help in the kitchen. He insists on helping as much as possible. He strives for as much independence as possible by trying to do as much as he can for himself. He can now put his shorts on for himself after his baths. I am thrilled that he is trying so hard. It just breaks my heart when he fails at something.

We were thrilled when we found out that he only has a short time left of needing the wheelchair. His arm is healing fine and he will be able to get the cast off. As soon as he was able to regain enough muscle strength he would be ditching the wheelchair for crutches. Bella told us that it should only take a week or two to get there. It really was great timing since Ethan and I will be starting school soon and Edward will be on his own during the day. Even if he was still in the wheelchair, with two good arms he would be able to get around and take care of himself during the day.

I was actually getting really excited about starting my new job. I was offered a position teaching first grade at the elementary school that Ethan is going to be attending preschool at. Esme, Alice, and I took Ethan and Kara out shopping last week to buy them new back packs for school. It was kind of a shame that Kara and Ethan were not going to be at the same school. On the other hand, though, it will be good for them to branch out on their own and make new friends. They will still see each other after school every day. Esme had decided that she was going to take Aiden all day and then pick up the two older ones after their classes let out. Alice and I would then pick up our kids after work. At least this was the plan until Alice and I had time to come up with a more permanent solution. I knew that Esme was really just trying to hold onto hope that Edward was going to regain his memories and our lives were going to go back to normal. It had been over a month since he woke up and I was beginning to lose hope.

I went to the utility room and pulled another load of clothes out of the dryer and took the basket to Edward to fold. Now that was one of the best things about him wanting to be useful. I was getting more help with things. I would wash the clothes and he would attempt to fold them. He would lay the piece of clothing on the table and be able to fold it one-handed. Towels were difficult and sheets induced a swearing fit that caused Ethan to cry, so we don't go there anymore.

One thing that I would really miss was that every afternoon, just after lunch, he and Ethan would crawl up on our bed and Edward would read to him and then the two of them would take a nap together. And Edward really needed naps in the afternoons because he wasn't sleeping well at nights. Let me rephrase that, he wasn't sleeping well with me sleeping next to him at night. The other night he fell asleep on the couch and slept soundly all night. Every night next to me involves rolling from his back to his side and back again…over and over and over. I just don't know what to do about it. If I go sleep upstairs in the guest room I wouldn't be able to hear him if he needed me. Besides, I don't want to start that. I even thought that if I held him while we slept he'd become more comfortable around me. That hasn't quite worked out the way that I had hoped either.

I continued to clean until I heard a knock at the front door and Esme's voice as she let herself in. I smiled as I entered the living room to see Ethan fly down the stairs and then jump into his grandmother's arms. She hugged him tight and then set him back down on the ground, "Go get your swim trunks, honey, we are going to go swimming back at my house." He was gone back up the stairs in a flash.

"But I want to go swimming too, mommy!" Edward teased his mother as she came in and gave him a kiss on the top of his head. As she walked away from him to come give me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, Kara climbed up onto Edward's lap. She reached into the little purse that she always carried and handed him a cookie.

"My favorite! How did you know?"

"Mommy told me. So I sneaked you one."

Ethan came running downstairs carrying his swim trunks and wearing his goggles, "I'm ready, Nana!" Sparing only a second for quick hugs for Edward and I, he was out the door to wait by Esme's car. She laughed as she grabbed Kara and Aiden and took off out the door herself.

I turned to my husband, "Are you ready to go?" He just nodded and I grabbed his wheelchair and we took off for his physical therapy session with Bella. I was going to have the rest of the day to myself as Esme was keeping Ethan, and Edward was going out with Emmett after his PT session. I was really looking forward to getting some shopping done and enjoying some peace and quiet. Maybe I could even relax in a hot bubble bath for a while and just forget everything for a bit. That would be nice.

EmmettPov: 

I was not about to let Edward even start to wallow in self pity. That shit was just not going to happen. Edward was not going to be able to just give up or to give in when thinks got to be too much. It was only his first night home and I am sure that it all had to be completely overwhelming. But the guy needed to put on the big boy pants, grow a pair or do just do whatever the hell he needed to man up and take care of his family. I knew from experience that once you started wallowing or feeling sorry for yourself you just started flying down this icy slope that was damn near impossible to climb back up. Going down that path would hurt his whole family, including my wife, and I was not going to put up with that shit for one second.

I got up out of bed and walked out of the room into the kitchen to get a snack. Rosie likes to tease me that I eat like a pregnant woman, meaning that I will eat just about anything, in any combination, at any time. Food is a passion of mine. She knows that it is a dream of mine to open a restaurant someday. I wish I could do it right now but we are most definitely not in the right place financially, having just bought the house. Besides, there is too much emotional upheaval in the family right now without adding to the stress. I'll get my dream one day. I would just have to be a little more patient. Right now I will just have to settle for doing the cooking at home. My Rose is wonderful at doing many things but cooking isn't one of them. Not that she hasn't tried to cook…a lot. But I prefer not to end up in the emergency room with food poisoning again.

I was standing at the front window drinking some juice when I felt Rose's arms wrap around my waist, "I woke up and you were gone."

"Sorry. I woke up and I was-"

"Hungry," she finished my sentence for me.

I pulled her around so that she was standing in front of me, facing me. I put down my glass and took her face in my hand, "I love you Rosalie. I don't ever want to neglect to tell you that. I never want you to have the slightest chance to ever doubt that." Then I kissed her with all the love that I could possibly pour into it. I wasn't a sensitive and romantic type of guy. I was brash and loud and my mother always said that I was charmingly uncouth. My grandmother always said that I didn't have the manners or social graces that God gave a cockroach. Mom always told me not to listen to the bitter old bitch. She never did get along with her Mother-in-law. I swear to God the day that she died my Mom poured herself a drink and shouted, "Ding Dong, the bitch is dead!" I have to say that I really love my mom.

I let Rose lead me back to our bedroom where I held her tight to me as we fell back to sleep. She was my whole life, my whole world. There is nothing that I wouldn't strive to do for her or give her. No matter what it cost me. Right now there was only one thing that she wanted. She wanted her brother back. I didn't know how I could do it or if I could at all, but damn it I was going to try. That is why I was picking Edward up from his therapy session with Bella after work and taking him out.

Rose and I were already spending nearly every night over there. The rest of the family was over there a lot, too. If it bothered Edward or Tanya to have all of us around all of the time neither one said anything or showed any irritation. To be honest, sometimes it seemed like they were happy to have us there as buffers or distractions so they wouldn't have to deal with each other directly or be alone together so much.

The rest of the night and the next day flew by quickly and before I knew it, I was headed for the hospital to get Edward. I was early when I showed up in Bella's PT room so I sat in a chair along the wall and watched them as I waited. Man, I never expected to see Bella again after we graduated high school and she took off for Florida. I was blown away when I found her in Edward's hospital room. I owe that girl my life. She was the first person to actually look at me and tell me, honestly, that I was smart and had potential. As much as I loved my parents, they were just too busy to pay attention to me. Dad was a logger and Mom worked as a secretary in the main office of the logging company. It is how they met. She had to come down to deliver the paychecks every Friday, this was before the days of direct deposit when checks were actually printed out and people actually had to take them to the bank themselves. Anyway, she gave him his check, he gave her his heart.

I was thrilled that Rose and Bella were getting along so well. Not only had Bella gone out to dinner with Rose, Alice, and Tanya that one night, but we had had her over for dinner one night as well. As Bella was leaving for the night she hugged me, "I told you that you would do amazing in college." And she was right. But it was only because of her that I attempted college in the first place. She had shown me how to channel my frustrations into positive things. She taught me that it was ok to learn differently or slower than everyone else. The end goal was what mattered, not how I got there.

Being officially diagnosed with dyslexia helped me a lot. Again that was all Bella. She was the one that recognized what was going on and demanded that the school and my parents get me tested and real help. My parents were livid when they found out that my teachers were merely passing me along from grade to grade to avoid being stuck with me two years in a row. They argued a lot over the fact they had been so busy working over the years that they neglected to see that I needed help.

Bella stood by me through all of the talks with my parents, the counselors, and the school board. I wanted her to go with me for moral support when I saw the doctors for the actual testing, but it was Christmas break and she had to go see her Mom in Florida. But I called her the second I was out of there.

Before I knew it, Bella had Edward standing and pivoting his body to get back into the wheelchair. That was the new thing. Someone needed to be there in case he lost his balance but he was to try to do the work of getting in and out of the chair by himself.

As soon as he was in the chair, I made my way over to them. "You ready to go, Edward?"

"Yeah. Where are we headed?"

"The Mariners are playing so I thought we'd hit a sport bar that I love and kick back a few and watch the game. That is, if you are allowed to drink."

"I stopped taking the pain pills a few days ago. I haven't been in so much pain that I can't handle it. Not even after Bella gets through torturing me. Your friend here enjoys inflicting pain on others."

"Yes. I do. Very much so," Bella joked back. "Drinking is fine if you stopped taking the pills. But no driving," she pointedly looked at me.

"Nah. I'll stop drinking long before we leave or I'll call Rose to come get us. Do you still enjoy watching the games? You are more than welcome to join us."

"Thanks for the invite but I have plans tonight."

"Hot date?"

"I wish. I just have a dinner meeting regarding another patient."

"Well, that just sounds like a whole lot of fun!"

"Oh yes. Tons."

"We'll have a beer for you then."

"You do that and hey, Emmett?" She called out as she turned to walk away, "If you need a ride and can't get Rose on the phone, call me and I will come get you. And the next time you go to the bar to watch the game-count me in!"

"Will do."

I pushed Edward's chair out to the parking lot and over to my truck. I was going to have to help him lift himself into the truck because it was higher off the ground than Tanya's car and I did not want him to get hurt on my watch.

We got to the bar and I parked Edward at a table while I went up to the bar to get us a couple of bottles to start with. I saw a couple of my buddies across the room and I acknowledged them briefly while I made my way back to Edward. I normally would have been sitting with them but I wanted Edward to be able to talk freely and not get overwhelmed by a bunch of strangers getting blitzed with us. If this worked out maybe next week we'd hang with my buddies.

He was still quite a bit jumpy around people and I could really get that. He didn't know most of us from Adam, as my grandfather would say, and here we were forcing ourselves down his throat and telling him we were family. I probably would have punched someone by now. I mean this shit he's going through is just totally fucked up.

It only took three beers to get him to open up. "I woke up this morning and she was snuggled into my back again. I can't hurt her feelings. I don't _want_ to hurt her feelings but that makes me really uncomfortable. I don't know what to do about it. How do I get her to stop pushing me?"

"Do you love her?"

"I don't know. Hell, Emmett I don't even _know her _but I am being forced to live with her."

"Maybe you should go stay with your parents for a while. You can always stay with Rose and me, too."

"And hurt Ethan in the process. I can't do that. I won't hurt him."

"I agree with you on that point. No one wants to see Ethan get hurt but no one else wants to see you live a life that you aren't happy with."

"How can I say if I am happy or not when I can't remember fucking shit? I need another damn beer." Ok. This was interesting. I don't think that I had ever seen Edward drunk before, and apparently drunken Edward swore like hell. This could be a lot of fun.

"Can I ask you something, Emmett?"

"Sure, Edward."

"Was Bella always a klutz when you two were in high school? I mean, crap, for a physical therapist she falls down a lot."

"Yeah," I said with a laugh, "that is trademark Bella. Always tripping over nothing."

"She damn near fell on top of me once."

"I wouldn't be surprised if she did! It wouldn't be a first for her."

"Did the two of you ever date back then?"

"Nah. She was always more of a sister to me than anything. Besides, I wasn't that stupid. Charlie hated me and would have shot me for sure."

We lapsed into silence as the waitress brought us another round of beer. I knew that I really should stop soon but Edward and I were having a blast drinking and cheering on the Mariners as they killed the Yankees. By the time the game was over it was getting late so I grabbed my phone and tried to call my wife. I tried three times but it was going straight to voicemail, which meant that she let it die again. So I called Bella to come get us.

I lived closer to the bar than Edward did so when Bella got there to pick us up, I told her to just drop us off at my house.

"Are you sure? I can take Edward home too."

'That's ok." Edward told her. "I'm fine crashing at Emmett's. I don't want to accidentally wake Ethan coming in this late."

"If you're sure." She seemed a little apprehensive about it but went with it. Maybe a little break from the stress of being at home would be a good thing for him. The man could not continue to live under such pressure. Maybe it wasn't my place, but I thought one night away was necessary to relieve the pressure before the poor man had a complete melt down and exploded.

A/N:

Happy Easter! (If you observe). If not: Happy Saturday!

First, I wanted to explain something that I forgot to put in an author's note before. The chapter where Bella is helping an autistic patient at school during summer is not a mistake. In my city, they are trying a pilot program at a few schools that have children stay in school over Winter, Spring, and Summer breaks. Right now it is completely voluntary. I hope it works out. On that note, my son got accepted to two of the three school districts that we applied to for open enrollment. Yea us! He chose the high school that his cousin will be attending and she is thrilled about it too. She is already talking about carpooling and study groups.

I have signed up to do two charity compilations. The first is for autism and for that I am going to write another LL Bella outtake. It will be various scenes from living life and one scene pre-attack. The other is a new outtake for no kid hungry. When I have more info on that I will post it. I will try to get links on my profile page by the end of the weekend.

A special thanks to SweetPea123 for betaing this for me and enduring me screwing up sending her the files. Somehow I end up sending her only half the chapter! Thank you so much to everyone else for reading and reviews will get a teaser. MWAH!


	12. Chapter 12

ASL 12

Fractures

There was still one week before school was to start for Tanya and Ethan, so her parents and sisters decided to come down to visit us for a few days. Great. Another group of strangers that considered themselves "my family" that I was expected to try to remember. Everyone told me that they were nice people and absolutely doted on Ethan and spoiled him.

I don't know how Tanya really felt about their visit but it was overwhelming and nerve-wracking. I already had enough people around me that kept 'covertly' watching me. There was always somebody that was sitting there waiting for me to suddenly remember everything. They may not have been sitting there staring at me, but they hovered. They were always hovering. All they were really succeeding at was increasing the pressure that I already felt to remember everything, which increased my frustrations at the situation and at them. I was not going to suddenly start jumping up and down screaming 'I remember!', 'I remember!' Hell, I was not going to start jumping up and down period at this point.

It was decided that we would have another family BBQ the first day they were here. I say it was decided because I wasn't exactly asked my opinion. Things had been strange around the house since the night I went out with Emmett and stayed at their house. I guess you could say things were a bit strained and Tanya had definitely not been happy that I had not come home that night.

I really don't know what Emmett told her when he called her that night. Maybe I should have been the one to call her, I don't know. I have absolutely no clue how to how a situation like that. This being-married thing is new to me. Then again, maybe there was something else that was bothering her. I had noticed that she was sitting at her desk a lot pouring over a stack of papers while I was watching TV or playing with Ethan. When I would ask her about it, she would tell me not to worry about it, it was nothing. She kept insisting that the only thing that I needed to worry about was getting better.

I tried. I really tried to focus on remembering everything. The problem was that I was beginning to believe that I was fighting a battle that had already been lost. That revelation had hit me the other day when I was watching the history channel. They were playing one of those Civil War reenactments and it hit me. They could reenact those battles a million times and it was never going to have a different outcome. The battle would always end the same way, with the same winners and the same losers. I could watch the home movies and scour the photo albums day and night and it wasn't going to help. If that was the key to getting my memory back, it would have happened the first time I looked at them, not the hundredth. Or the five hundredth. Or the thousandth time I watched them. I had already begun to accept this as my reality and truth. I just couldn't declare the battle over without inciting tears from Tanya, my mother, or my sisters.

It probably didn't help anything that I had deliberately fallen asleep on the couch a couple of times since the night that I had stayed at Emmett and Rose's. I'd sleep on the couch every night if I could, except my leg and arm would kill me the next morning. The pain wasn't too bad the first time I did it. It was manageable. But the second time I had a PT session with Bella and I was convinced that I was dying by the time that it ended. I have two types of sessions with Bella, physical and occupational. In the occupational we just sat and talked for now. When my cast came off, we'd start some life skills, like computers. She was going to help me relearn programs she said I probably already knew. She kept talking about something called 'office sweet'. That was a stupid name for a computer program, if you asked me.

Like I said, mostly we would talk. Mostly I would talk about things that I saw on TV that had confused me. One night I called her and made her explain to me what a hybrid car was. It took the whole half hour that Tanya was taking a bath. There were now cars that you could plug in so you didn't have to use gas? Too weird. It sounded like it was like dad's rechargeable drill. When I mentioned that to Bella she laughed a little and said, "Yes, it was essentially the same concept with just a few major differences. Like, you wouldn't expect your drill to be able to do seventy down the highway after being charged. If it does you have more serious problems than I can help you with. You'd need an exorcist, not a therapist." That made _me_ laugh. Talking to her was like talking to Emmett. I knew that both of them wanted me to succeed in getting my life back, but I could be honest and talk about my doubts that it would ever happen without seeing the frowns and tears of disappointment, in other words; without all of the guilt.

The morning after the family BBQ was the day I was getting my arm cast off. Tanya's parents came by early in the morning to pick up Ethan and take him to the zoo. I managed to upset Tanya again when, after she told me not to tell Ethan about the zoo trip, I accidentally let it slip. It took longer than normal to get him to lie down and go to sleep and I managed to accomplish that by letting him sleep with us.

She was still irritable the next morning when we were attempting to get ready to go out for the day. Ethan had asked for pancakes for breakfast and she unfortunately burned them and didn't have any mix to make more. Ethan was pouting about having to eat cold cereal for breakfast. Tanya promised that she would run to the store today while I was meeting with Bella. She hadn't stayed at one of my sessions yet, citing the desire to get some errands done.

I was surprised to find Bella waiting for us at the doctor's office. As Tanya got my chair situated against the wall she looked over at Bella, "Thank you so much for coming." 

"Never hesitate to ask for help. You cannot do it all by yourself, and trying to be stubborn and independent will only lead to failure. Go run your errands and don't come back until you've relaxed with a cup of coffee."

An hour later I was sitting in Bella's office with her, playing around with being able to move my arm and be able to use it again, at least a little bit. Of course the muscles were so weak from lack of use that it was difficult to use the arm.

"This is why we want you to wait a few days before starting crutches. We need to strengthen that arm before you use it to support yourself". She hand me a small little barbell and showed me how she wanted me to do lifts and curl my arm. She told me to do five sets of ten. My arm was so tired and sore by the time I got my third set done.

"I know it hurts Edward, but you haven't used those muscles in a long time. We have to get them strong if you want out of this chair and to be able to move yourself around. Isn't that what you said you really wanted your first goal to be? That you hated being at everyone's mercy to get around?"

That helped me get my second strength and finish the last two sets. As soon as I was done, Bella went to a little mini fridge in the corner of the room and grabbed us each a Dr. Pepper and sat back down with me. This was my favorite part of our sessions, when we could sit back, relax, and just talk.

I was so lost in our conversation that I did not realize that I was using my arms to move myself backward and forward while I vented my current frustrations. I had been home for over a week and I was beginning to feel suffocated, and at times I was feeling like I was being held hostage and forced into living someone else's life.

"Look at you being mobile!" Bella smiled at me. I smiled back at her. It was a great feeling to know that I was about to get back a piece of my independence. Even if it was just a small piece.

Alice POV:

"How is your brother doing?" That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it?

I had left my little shop early today for an appointment with my therapist. I was feeling a lot better about some things and I did have less guilt. She kept telling me that I did nothing to feel guilty for. I could not control my body and I was completely unable to control any of the decisions that Edward made. She was right. While I knew that he had been here all night, I did not know that he was going to work that day on no sleep. I had no way of knowing that he would drive home so exhausted that he was suffering a severe impairment. She made me admit that had I known, I would have done everything in my power to stop him from driving that day. That revelation switched my feelings from guilt to anger. Why didn't anyone stop him? Why didn't someone take the keys from him and drive him home? Did they even try? Surely at least one of the nurses had to realize that he was in no shape to drive.

That is where we were in my therapy. I was angry now. I was angry at the family a little. My doctor was trying to get me to admit that they could only do so much to stop him if he was determined to drive. I called bullshit on that. If he had been drinking I am sure that they would have wrestled the keys from him if they needed to. Driving while sleep deprived could be as bad, if not worse, than driving while drunk. I was mostly angry with Edward for putting himself in that situation and hurting the entire family. That one brought me back to guilt. I felt bad for being angry with Edward when he is suffering so much already. It was a viscous cycle that I was stuck in and there were days that I was still struggling to keep from drowning.

"Edward is the same. Always the same."

"I am sorry to hear that."

"It's fine. It will happen. I know it will."

"Alice, we talked about this. The longer it takes the less likely—"

"It is that he'll remember everything. Yeah. You've said that, but we are not going to give up."

"Where do you draw the line between encouraging him and pushing him too far?"

"I know what you're saying and we are not going there. Failure is not an option."

"It seems like that is a lot of pressure to put on him. What about the alternative?"

"What alternative? There is no alternative."

"What if he focuses on moving on from where he is and starts anew."

"That is just ridiculous. Of course not. He wants to remember. Edward doesn't take well to failure."

"I wouldn't necessarily call it a failure if he can't regain his memories. It really is beyond his control. I do believe that as time goes on you need to truly consider that this is a new reality for you and your family."

I just shook my head no. Edward had made off-hand comments once or twice about that but we were not about to let him give up. She decided that we should move onto another topic before our time was up and asked how I was still handling being back to work with the new baby.

"It's getting better. I'm still really tired, but I took your advice and I had a couch added to my office and I take a nap in the afternoon. I feel comfortable driving myself to and from work."

"That's great news." We continued to discuss how I was dealing with my post-partum depression and how I was doing on the medicine that she prescribed me when I first started coming here.

After the session was over I normally would have driven to my parents' house to pick up the kids, but my husband had asked me out on a date for tonight so I went straight home to get ready to go out.

I was really excited for this date. It had been almost three months since Aiden was born and it was longer than that since my husband and I had made love. With everything going on I just hadn't felt up to it. That is where my husband is so amazing, he knew how to be just so affectionate and showing me that I was still attractive to him, and that he wanted me without making me feel like he was pushing me for sex. But I knew he wanted to. We've always enjoyed our sex life immensely and I was eager to get that part of our marriage back myself.

I ran into my room and came to a quick halt when I noticed that our bed had been made and I knew for a fact that I had not done it. I rarely did anymore. Jasper and I already shared the housework pretty evenly before Aiden was born, but he was determined that I not get overwhelmed with two kids and my shop so we made a list of housework chores. That we could eliminate making the bed every day was on that list. We also decided to hire a service to come do the lawn work so he could spend more time helping me with the kids and the inside of the house.

When I reached the bed and went to drop my purse down I noticed that not only had Jasper made the bed, he had changed the sheets. I laughed to myself when I realized that I was not the only one planning on having sex tonight.

I could hear my husband out in the main part of our bedroom when I stepped out of the shower. I wrapped myself in my towel and went to sit at my makeup table and pulled out my hair dryer and curling iron. Men were so lucky; they did not have near as much to do to get ready to go out. Even with my short simple hairstyle he was always ready to go at least a half hour before I was.

I couldn't help the smile on my face when I realized that he was taking me to my favorite indulgence restaurant. I had many 'favorite' restaurants. My favorite romantic restaurant was this little Italian bistro; it was by no means fancy but it was all about candles and ambiance. Tonight was a place that he knew that would have me smiling and relaxed by the time we left.

The host, who was in this ridiculous cowboy hat that was way too big for him, showed us to our table and then left us with a wink and a nod. We each indulged in one glass of wine since I wasn't nursing Aiden full time anymore. Neither of us needed to look at the menu to know what we wanted to eat. I ordered the same thing that I get every time I came here, the T-bone, well done, steamed vegetables, a side salad, and the loaded baked potato. The smartass waiter thought he was being funny when he asked me if I wanted the sixteen or twenty ounce steak. I looked him right in the eye and answered, "Well, duh, I want the twenty ounce." It was all Jasper could do not to laugh as he told the waiter that he would have the same.

I was putting our leftover steak in the refrigerator later that night when Jasper came up behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist and started kissing my neck. I giggled and he tightened his grip on me, "What would it take to entice you into my bed, sexy?"

I turned in his armed and kissed him soundly, "hmmm…I don't know. Watcha got to offer me?"

"How about a chocolate decadence cake?" My eyes shot up to his and then started to search the kitchen for any sign of the cake. "It's over here," he said as he took my hand and led me over by the oven. I couldn't believe that he did this. It was his mother's recipe and the only dessert that my husband could make, short of ice cream sundaes. Emmett has been trying to get Jasper and his mom to give up the recipe to him for years, but Jasper's Mama had refused every time. Her answer is always the same, 'It's a family recipe that can only be passed on to a Whitlock'. Emmett even offered to legally change his name to Whitlock just to get his hands on the recipe.

I was brought out of my thoughts by Jasper's voice in my ear, "Why don't you go on upstairs and get ready for bed while I cut us a piece of cake and bring it to you. Now hurry, sexy!" I giggled again as I turned and ran out of the room and up the stairs.

I ran into my closet, shedding my dress as I went along and grabbed the new negligee that I had made for tonight and quickly slipped it on. I grabbed our favorite scented candles and laid them out across the room. I had just finished lighting them when I heard Jasper coming up the stairs. I turned off the overhead light and ran across the room and jumped onto the bed.

Jasper walked into the room carry a huge piece of cake and a large glass of milk. He walked over to the bed and crawled up beside me. He handed me the glass of milk to hold. This was our normal routine. He would feed me bites of cake and I would feed him drinks of milk.

As soon as our dessert was done, he took the glass from me and placed it and the plate on the night stand behind him and then he attacked me with fervor. I went back at him with just as much passion as he was giving me and it wasn't long before we were naked and completely wrapped up in each other in every way imaginable.

When we were finally sated and completely exhausted, Jasper got up to blow out the candles before jumping back into bed and pulling me back into his arms. That is how we would spend the rest of this wonderful and rare night alone, naked and cradled in each other's love.

A/N:

I hope that everyone had a great Easter. I spent mine in the ER with my brother. I did however get a ham dinner from the cafeteria. But he is home now and even though he drags his foot a little when he walks and drops the ball often when playing catch with my son, he is alive and will be able to keep his life pretty close to what it was pre-stroke. That is why this is posting later in the day than normal. I just couldn't get into a writing mood most of the week. I just got 13 done and its ready to go off to Sweetpea.

Things are going to move along pretty quickly from here on. Time moves on and so do my characters. There should be an update as normal next week. Thanks to Sweetpea123 for beating this for me. She is so sweet and wonderful. Hugs to all. Reviews will get teasers!


	13. Chapter 13

ASL Chapter 13

Bad Omens

EPOV:

I've been home from the hospital for three months. It has been five months since the accident and I am no closer to remembering that last thirteen years of my life than I was when I woke up in that hospital bed. I spent weeks being frustrated as hell at everything and everyone before I had finally had it.

It was just a couple days after I got the final brace off my leg. The leg was taking longer than they had expected it to for it to heal. After I got the regular cast off they made me wear a leg brace and walking boot. I was irritated by it and frustrated as hell, and I ended up completely hitting a wall during my physical therapy session with Bella. They still made me use my crutches to get around because my leg was still weak from not being used for almost half a year. She had me at these parallel bars and I was to walk down and back using the bars for support. Bella was walking right behind me. She was always standing next to me to make sure that I didn't fall down and get hurt. Right. That may be true in a physical sense but I don't think that anyone really understood what was going on inside my head. I mean, I have talked about a few things with Emmett and Bella, but not everything. There was a lot that I was keeping to myself. There was a lot that I felt I needed to keep to myself.

Things at home were strained at best. I have no idea who I had been for the last thirteen years but I had no idea why or how I fell in love with Tanya and married her. Don't get me wrong, she was nice and pretty, but we had very little in common. The only conversations we ever had that weren't strained or forced was about Ethan. He was the only reason that I had not moved back to my parent's house. That thought made me feel guilty. Tanya was so kind hearted and she was doing everything she could think of to make sure that I was happy and taken care of. That is why I won't tell anyone just how unhappy I really am. It wasn't her fault this happened. It was mine. I was finally starting to understand what my parent had always said about having to live with the consequences of my actions. I was there.

Ethan is such an amazing kid. He was incredibly smart, funny, and affectionate. I loved that kid so much. I guess that is normal since I am his father. That was still hard for me to grasp. I have a son. No. I have a son that looks exactly like me. He had been really nervous about starting school and we had a hard time getting him out the door that morning, until Tanya promised him that she would be in the building too and I would be at home waiting for him to get back and tell me all about his day. Where else was I supposed to go? I was still in the leg cast and using crutches; I was stuck here until someone came by to save me.

That is exactly how I felt. Stuck. I was stuck in this house and I was stuck in this life. I wasn't even a doctor anymore. Bella and I had that talk right after my cast came off. I understood that they had to do it. To be honest I didn't care one bit. If anything, it was a relief to get that pressure off of my shoulders. I didn't know what I was going to do now, but the thought of being a doctor didn't appeal to me at all. That was the really weird thing because I've wanted to be a doctor since I was ten. Finding out that I didn't have to go back to a job that, in my mind, was chosen for me by someone else felt freeing. It was like I finally had a choice about something in my life. Now I just had to figure out what I wanted to do.

Tanya was still attempting to be affectionate when we were alone. So far, it has mainly been when we go to bed at night. Or she will try to cuddle into my side or hold my hand when we are watching TV together. Luckily that has been rare since school really got going. She's been very busy with lesson plans, PTA, and grading papers. When she does bother me though, it's always the same thing. She wants me to be the man she married and I just don't know how to be that guy.

The whole thing has had me getting more frustrated and angrier with every passing day. She either doesn't get it or didn't want to get it. I just wasn't attracted to her like that. And she did try a couple of times to start something with me. I luckily had the excuse that my leg was still in the cast and it was hurting. That got her to back off without hurting her feelings, but I still felt like an ass rejecting her advances.

I wasn't exactly lying about the pain though. Especially after a physical therapy session with Bella. She was tough on me and wasn't about to let me get away with being a slacker. She pushed me physically, and even though it was hard and sometimes I really just wanted to tell her to fuck off, I worked harder.

That is where I was now, pushing my weak leg to be able to support my weight. It did not want to cooperate though and I started to go down again. As always, Bella caught me and held me up until I could get my bearings. I started walking again, only to have my leg go down on me again. Only this time it was the supposed good leg. Bella had caught me and lowered me to the floor. I laid there for a moment before I punched the floor with my fists and let out a scream of frustration. Bella pushed me back down to the mat when I tried to get back up.

"Stay there and rest for a moment. You're done for today. I am going to go get you a wheelchair."

"I don't need a damn wheelchair." I snapped at her.

"Yes, you do."

"I said that I don't need that chair. I can walk."

"No, Edward. You don't _want_ to use the chair, but you do _need_ it. There's a big difference. You need to listen to me before you hurt your leg again. Or is that what you want? You want to be stuck in a cast again?"

"No," I answered sullenly. I hated when she got all logical like that. But damn if she wasn't cuter than she normally was when she was ticked off. Bella was exactly the kind of girl that I usually fell for. If I wasn't stuck in a marriage with Tanya, I would totally be asking Bella out or someone just like her. But I couldn't even entertain that train of thought. My life was what it was and there was nothing that I could do to change it.

One look at her and I knew that she was going to win this argument, so I gave in and allowed her to help me up and into the chair, "Come on, we're going to head to my office for a soda and a long talk."

She had a way of making me feel bad about acting out. I hung my head and kept my mouth shut as she walked ahead of me. When she realized that I was not following she turned and narrowed her eyes at me, "There is nothing wrong with your arms. Get moving." She turned and started walking away again. I was still sitting there as she got to the door, "I mean _NOW_ Edward Cullen!" I grabbed the wheels of the chair and pushed myself forward. I moved as quickly as I could to try to catch up to her. I didn't want to make her any angrier than she already was.

Tanya POV:

I was such a horrible wife. When my family was getting ready to leave to go back to Alaska all I wanted to do was beg them to take me with them. I was tired, frustrated, and literally at the end of my rope. That was weeks ago and still nothing has changed. I didn't know what to do anymore. But when I married Edward I vowed to be there for better or worse and in sickness and health. I wanted to believe that this was just one of those times that challenge the strength of a marriage, but as time has passed I was losing hope of ever getting my husband back. That was all I really wanted, my husband.

My mother pulled me aside before she went home and told me that she was worried about me. My family could not believe how different things were between Edward and I since the accident. She told me that where he once looked at me as though I was his sun, he barely even looked at me or even talked to me now. It was true. It felt like I had to initiate every single conversation that we had.

I sat in a café having a cup of coffee and looking over my students' homework. I really loved teaching more than I ever thought I would. It was thrilling to walk into my classroom every morning and look into the faces of my eager, smiling students.

I looked down at my watch as I took another sip of my coffee. I still had another twenty minutes before I had to return to the hospital to pick up Edward. I sighed, put the papers down, and stared out the window. Let me rephrase that. I had failed at trying to seduce my husband. Twice. I was a failure. That is all that kept running through my head since my attempt. Failure. Failure. Failure.

It was a bit scary the way that he would just agree with whatever I suggested. He never spoke up or gave his opinion about anything. I found myself wishing that he would argue with me or fight me on something. Anything. This attitude of resignation that he had was not him.

Thanksgiving was tomorrow and I was not really looking forward to pretending that we were one big happy family. Emmett and Esme were going to be doing most of the cooking this year, as Emmett and Rose really wanted to have the holiday at their new house. That was fine with me. We had the holiday at our house last year and I just wasn't in the mood to deal with the stress of hosting a big family holiday. Besides Edward's family we also invite Emmett's parents and Jasper's. I know that Emmett invited Bella to join us, but she declined saying that she was spending the holiday with her Dad so that she could spend Christmas lying on the beach with her mother in Florida. Emmett wasn't allowing Alice and me to bring anything for the dinner. He said that we had our hands full and were too busy to worry about it.

A throat clearing pulled me out of my thoughts and I looking up to find a good looking gentleman standing there, "I'm sorry to bother you but I was wondering if I could sit here." I looked around the café only to see that the place had filled up completely while I had been lost in my thoughts. The extra chair at my table was indeed the only available one left. I nodded my head and he sat down immediately, "Thank you. I'm Felix and you are?" He stuck his hand out to me.

"Tanya." I replied shaking his hand.

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you Tanya. You're a teacher?" He asked, pointing to the papers on the table. He asked me about my job and how I liked it. He asked about me. He told me that he was a clown. Like a real clown that people hired for kid's parties. I was a bit surprised.

"I don't think that I have ever met a clown that wasn't in costume." I smiled at him.

"Costume or not, true clowns never pass up an opportunity to make someone smile. And you looked like you really needed a reason to smile. Tell Chuckles what has you so sad?"

"Chuckles?"

"Yes I go by Chuckles, Peter Peanut, Mr. Fee-Fi-Fo, Billy Banana, and my particular favorite, Aunt Yoo Hoo."

"Aunt Yoo Hoo?" I laughed.

"Yes. I'll have you know that I based her off of my favorite uncle in the whole wide world!" That was it. I lost it. I laughed so hard that I knew I was drawing the attention of the other patrons, but I didn't care. I had not laughed this hard in so long and it felt good. It was freeing.

"Success! Thank God! I didn't want to have to turn in my clown license because you wouldn't smile for me."

We talked for a while more before I peeked at my watch and realized that I was now late getting back to get Edward. I started throwing my papers back in my bag, apologized for just running off in the middle of a conversation and took off out of the café. I had just buckled my seat belt when I looked up and found Chuckles about to knock on my window. I rolled down my window as he held my phone out to me, "You left it on the table." He handed me both the phone and a business card. When I looked back up at him he smiled, "In case you and your husband ever want to hire a clown for your son's birthday." He turned and walked away as I stuffed my phone and the business card in my purse and took off for the hospital.

EPOV:

"Talk to me." That was all she said as we entered her office and she shut the door. She leaned back against it briefly before going over to the fridge and grabbing us some soda.

She handed me the can and I just sat there staring at it. I didn't even realize that I was crying until she handed me a Kleenex. She didn't say anything. She just let me cry until I was ready to talk. When I was ready I looked her straight in the eyes, "I want my life back."

"What life is that?"

"The one in which I am living with my parents, going to high school, and being carefree."

"That hasn't been your life for a long time. You can't have that life back."

"I know."

"Do you? Do you really want to give up your son?"

I shook my head frantically feeling mortified at the insinuation I accidently made. I could never. I would never.

"Ok. Do you really want to give up Tanya?"

I just shrugged at that and heard Bella gasp. It was the first time that I had made my feelings on Tanya known to anyone.

"What are you saying?"

"Nothing." I mumbled, keeping my eyes trained on the floor. "I'm saying nothing."

She grabbed my hands, "Edward look at me." I took a minute before I raised my head to look at her. "Talk to me. I can't help you unless you talk to me."

"It doesn't matter. There's nothing you can do to help me."

"You don't know that. If you are having a problem you need to talk about it. Whatever it is, you can tell me. Or Emmett. Have you talked to Emmett about it?" I shook my head no.

She gripped my hands tighter in hers, "I hate the idea that you think that you can't confide in me."

"It's not that. I know I can tell you anything. It's just that there is no solution."

"There's always a solution. Tell me about the problem and let's see if we can come up with the answer together."

Finally I was so frustrated that I completely lost my cool and let everything out, "I've tried to find a solution. I've had nothing to do but sit and think since I've been stuck in this damn chair. But if you want to know what my problem is I'll tell you. I am married to this woman. I don't know who the hell she is but I do know that I don't love her. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life next to her, but that is exactly the life that I am stuck with. I can't leave her because she has been nothing but great and kind and caring and doesn't deserve to be hurt. And that is exactly what would happen. I would break her heart if I leave her. Then there is my family who would be upset with me for leaving her, and my parents would be so disappointed in me. I know that they are already disappointed that I have failed to regain my memories. And then there is the fact that I have no clue what I want to do for a job. So tell me Bella. What is your great solution to my fucked up life?"

"First of all, no one is disappointed in you that you have not been able to recall your lost memories. If anything, they are merely disappointed in the situation, but never, and I mean NEVER you. Second, it would hurt Tanya more and be cruel for you to stay with her if you don't love her. Think about that."

I didn't get to respond to Bella because at the moment Tanya knocked on the door and let herself into the office. She had a strange look on her face as she asked if I was ready to go yet. Bella handed me my crutches and told Tanya that I should stay off my legs as much as possible tonight to allow them to continue to rest and recover.

We got out to Tanya's car and as we pulled out of the parking lot Tanya glanced over at me quickly, "How was your session today?"

"Fine." She sighed at my one word answer and didn't say another word for the rest of the drive to my parent's house. Dad talked us into staying for dinner, saying that he had ordered enough pizza for all of us since Mom was helping Emmett prep for tomorrow. I agreed first. The last thing that I wanted was to get stuck in the house alone with Tanya tonight.

A/N:

Happy…er…Friday. I am going to be running most of the day tomorrow so I am posting now.

The clown names are a direct reference to the clown on the Mary Tyler Moore show. He went by all those names. May he rest in Peace. (if you don't know the story of how Chuckles died ask and I will tell. It's also available in a google search. It's one of the most iconic episodes in TV history.)

We're time jumping a bit and there will be another one in chapter 14 which is off to Sweetpea123 tonight. She is amazing and fixes my crimes against grammar for me.

See you next Friday and remember reviews get teasers. MWAH!


	14. Chapter 14

ASL 14

The Truth

Tanya POV:

Late December:

I leaned against the wall and took some deep breathes to keep myself from hyperventilating. I had not wanted to believe the things that I overheard Edward telling Bella. I wish I had never overheard that conversation. But I did. I couldn't escape the memory of standing outside the room hearing him say that he did not want me. For the next few days I kept replaying his words in my head until my chest ached and my head felt like it was splitting in two.

I sighed and pushed those thoughts from my head as I forced myself to focus on what remained of the kids in my class run around the room. They were on a sugar high from the cookies and punch the PTA had provided for our class party and it made me want to punch the PTA. Today was our last day of school before Christmas break, and thankfully most of my students had already been taken home by their parents.

I looked back up at the clock and inwardly thanked God that it was time to get the kids ready to go outside and give them back to their parents. I loved my job and I loved my students, most of the time, but everyone had their breaking point and with everything going on at home I was quickly approaching mine.

Once all the kids were packed up and bundled up, I grabbed my coat and my bags and led them outside. As soon as my last kid had been retrieved by her mother I walked over to where Edward was parked waiting for me. He had taken to driving me to work and keeping the car since we could not afford to replace his right now. It made sense to both of us. I didn't really need it, and it kept him from being trapped at the house all the time.

I tried to send him to the grocery store once so that I wouldn't have to stop after work, but that didn't quite work out the way that I had hoped. I gave him a list but he came home with a bunch of junk food instead. I was used to being on a budget, but he wasn't. I had to dip into our savings again to replace the money he spent from our limited grocery budget. There were other times that he bought things without thinking of the financial consequences, and it was up to me to figure out how to deal with it while still keeping our heads above water.

After 'that afternoon' at Bella's office, I had started silently watching and observing Edward when we were home alone and when his family was around. He was so open and outgoing with everyone. Everyone but me, that is. With me he was quiet and distant. I had foolishly believed that he was just nervous around me. After all, I was not oblivious to the fact that he saw himself as a sixteen year old boy and I was a grown woman. I thought that it was just a temporary thing. I always believed that he would remember everything.

I tried to get his attention. I was determined that I was not going to go down without a fight. I tried harder to engage him in conversation. One night, I arranged for a sitter so that we could go out on a date, dinner and a movie. But he fell asleep as soon as he got home from his session with Bella. I ended up ordering pizza and eating alone in the kitchen.

I tried again a few days later. This time I made his favorite meal. I went so far as to try to use alcohol to relax him and loosen him up. It didn't work at all. Even drunk he didn't want me. I ended up crying myself to sleep alone in the guest room that night. That is where I slept from that night on. I would wait until he went to bed, in case he needed help with anything, before I would go to bed myself. If Edward even noticed that I was gone, he never said a word to me about it.

He had made huge strides in his therapy sessions with Bella and I was so proud of him for that. All of his injuries had completely healed and he had been cleared to drive again. He no longer needed me to take care of him. One thing that he did talk to me about was that he had decided not to try to pursue a career in medicine again. I didn't blame him for that. I didn't really care about being the wife of a doctor. He could do whatever he wanted; I just wanted him to be happy, no matter what career path his future held.

I was there when he told his parents his decision. Carlisle sadly accepted Edward's decision and Esme cried. I knew it wasn't because he wasn't going back to medicine; it was the fact that the decision meant that Edward had officially given up recovering his memories, and was looking for a way to move on with his life.

Yet, I waited silently. I could rationalize my silence and procrastinating all I wanted. First it was that he was still recovering from his injuries and needed me to take care of him. I couldn't leave him when he couldn't take care of himself. And then that I didn't want to ruin Christmas for the whole family, let alone Ethan. The honest truth was that all I was doing was deliberately avoiding the inevitable.

We were silent as Edward drove us to his parent's house to pick up Ethan. I stared out the window and held in my urge to scream. _**It wasn't fair! Our life wasn't supposed to end up like this! We loved each other and we were happy!**_I almost started laughing when I realized that I sound exactly like Ethan did when he threw a tantrum when he wasn't getting his way. I was the petulant child that I often accused my son of being, and I didn't care. I felt that I had the right to be a bit pissy about the situation we were in.

As we pulled into his parent's driveway I finally turned to him, "I need the car tomorrow. I have some errands to run." He just nodded and got out of the car. We only spoke a handful of words to each other for the rest of the evening.

The next morning I sat in the car staring at the building in front of me. I never thought that I would end up in this position. I never would have believed that I was going to do this but I was so very tired. I looked at the business card one more time before grabbing a Kleenex out of my purse, wiping the tears from my eyes, and forcing myself to walk into that building and take the steps that I knew were going change everything.

**EPOV:**

Bella kept telling me that I needed to talk to Tanya. I knew that I needed to be honest with her. The problem was that I had absolutely no idea how to talk to her. How do I tell her that I am miserable and don't want to be here? I was so lost on what to do because I had never had to do anything like this before. So I kept it to myself. I wanted to try to figure out how I was going to make this work before I sat down and talked to her. Was it ever going to be possible for me to make everyone happy, including myself? I doubted that but there had to be some hope.

It wasn't just that I was having a hard time getting up the courage to talk to her about our relationship, or lack thereof. I had no idea what were we supposed to talk about at all. I kept hoping that I would discover something that we had in common, but I had yet to find anything. Well, except for Ethan. Ethan was what we talked about the most. When we did attempt to talk about anything else, the conversations would end up being short and a bit stunted. Mostly we avoided talking to each other all together.

I was going to try to find a way to talk to her that night she arranged for a sitter so that we could go out. I didn't mean to fall asleep. I had another hard, emotional session with Bella and I only wanted to lie down for a minute. I felt really bad when I woke in the middle of the night and realized that I had ruined our night out. I went up to our bedroom and found that she wasn't there. I found her sound asleep in the guest room, so I went back to our room and tried to get to sleep. I'd called Emmett and made him come over and help me move the bed back upstairs the day that I was cleared to start using the stairs again. Don't even get me started about how taking a real shower again for the first time nearly brought me to tears.

I started having trouble sleeping after that. I'd fall asleep just fine but then I would wake again around two or three and be unable to get back to sleep, so I would sit up alone in the dark and think. I knew that Tanya had given up sleeping in the same bed as me, but since she didn't seem inclined to talk about it I didn't bring it up either.

Today Tanya said that she had an errand to run and needed the car, so I was home alone with Ethan. I was starting to become comfortable with being a dad. Especially now that I was able to move around on my own and I could actually do things for him. This was only the second time that Tanya had left him in my care. The first time was when Rose and Alice had insisted that she join them for girl's night. He and I made pizzas, played memory, and watched Thomas videos all night until it was time to bathe and get ready for bed. So he was up a half hour later than his bed time. I didn't care.

The next night was my night to go out with Emmett, Bella, and Jasper. Baseball season had long ended and now we were watching football. Bella liked to join us even though she'd spend most of the night heckling us that rugby players made American football players look like whiny little wusses. She was smart and funny and we all loved hanging out with her.

Even though we were becoming good friends while hanging out with my brothers-in-law, she kept everything extremely professional when we were working. I was seeing her three times a week right now. I had officially given up on recovering my lost memories. It was a pointless waste of my time to try anymore. I had come to terms with the fact that I had lost thirteen years of my life and I had started focusing on the future. I was attempting to figure out career options that were worth pursuing. It seemed like everyday I found something else that captured my interest. Last week I had considered everything from lawn care, to law, to even law enforcement. I loved seeing the way that Bella lit up with pride when she talked about her dad and his career and I really wanted Ethan to look like that one day when talking about me. I was positive that my parents and sisters still believed that I would magically remember one day. It was just too unrealistic for me to keep sitting at home hoping and waiting.

She was working on teaching me how to use some electronics I had never seen before. That was intriguing and fun. It was amazing how many new toys and gadgets were out there now. I also had a new cell phone. Tanya sat with me and explained how to add numbers to it, and she also explained in detail about how minutes we had to use and that we had unlimited text messaging. Then she had to explain what that was, and how I would text someone, and why I would want to do that instead of just calling them.

Some things were just weird. Like paying at the gas pump with a credit card, self checkouts at the grocery store, and since when did McDonalds start selling strange coffees? I mean, what the hell is a mocha and why would I even be asked if I wanted it hot or cold? I just wanted a cup of coffee to warm up after being out in the cold rain.

Besides Ethan, the only other thing that Tanya would mention to me regularly was this budget she had us on. She kept trying to keep me from spending too much. I tried, but occasionally I'd see something new that I had never seen before and I just had to get it to try it. Sometimes it was just some food product, and she didn't care too much about those purchases. It was when I would charge something that was electronic and very expensive on the credit card that she would get upset with me. Once I accidently used this credit card that took the money directly out of our checking account. I didn't now that. She never explained that it was different. I felt bad when she had to call the bank and try to get money into the account to cover the bill. I felt real bad about that because I knew that if I was still able to practice medicine, or had any kind of job, that we would be better off financially. How was I supposed to get a job if I just didn't know what I wanted to do yet?

After she got home from her errands she went straight into the kitchen and started dinner. She never told me where she'd gone to, but then again, I never asked either. All I could really tell you was that she was nervous and fidgety for the rest of the night. Then for the first time she went to bed first and went directly to the guest room.

We opted not to go to the Christmas party at the hospital this year. Tanya told me that we had gone every year before. I just didn't feel up to it. I didn't want to stand there and have all these doctors and nurses that thought they knew me look at me with pity and sorrow. Poor Dr. Cullen was not allowed to practice medicine anymore. I had enough of the looks and whispered comments every time that I went to the hospital for my appointments with Bella. They just didn't get that I didn't care. Every time I would say that I'd get the other look. The one that said they thought I was full of shit. I did know that Bella was going to the party before flying out in the morning. She told Emmett and me that she taking some guy that she had been out with a couple of times as her date. Seth was pretty cool. I liked him well enough. Bella had brought him with her to football night once so that Emmett could meet him. I guess her dad wanted a full report from Emmett on whether this guy could be trusted with Bella.

When I woke the next morning Tanya was gone. I knew that Bella had asked her to drive her to the airport, seeing as the rest of my family would be tired and sleeping in after the party. I hoped that Bella enjoyed her trip to see her mother. I knew that she had been looking forward to being able to lie out on the beach on Christmas morning. She was going to be gone for a week so she gave me homework to do, and told me to call if I needed her.

The next few days went by quickly. It seemed at times that Tanya wanted to say something but then she would change her mind and leave the room. Yesterday was Christmas and it was thrilling to watch how excited Ethan and Kara got with their presents. Just like Thanksgiving, we spent the holiday at Rose and Emmett's house. I had no idea what to get any of them for Christmas so I had enlisted Alice to help me. I convinced her to take the afternoon off work to go out with me. It was a fun afternoon for both of us and it worked to accomplish more than just shopping. We were able to really talk and I got to know who she was now. Thankfully, Alice was able help me stay on my budget and still get everyone something they wanted. I think grown-up Alice and I were going to be good friends.

Christmas was two days ago and right now I am sitting in a restaurant absolutely stunned. After Mom called, inviting Ethan to go with her and Kara to the museum, Tanya had suggested that we go out to lunch. The waitress had just left after taking our orders when Tanya started talking, "You proposed to me here. It's also where we had our first date." I just nodded in response. "You don't know that. I know that you couldn't know that anymore." She sighed, "I've…I've come to understand that and I accept that." Then she looked me directly in the eyes. "The man that loved me? The man that sat right in that chair where you are sitting and asked me to marry him? He died six months ago in that car accident. I understand now that you are not that man, and you will never be that man again. I will never be able to get him back. I can't live with myself knowing that I am forcing you to try to be someone you are not. All we are doing is living a lie and hurting everyone in the process." We both had tears streaming down our faces by this point, "It's not fair to either of us. It's not fair to our son. I love you so much and I will always love you. I could try to hold on and attempt to make you love me, but we'll only end up hating each other and I don't want that. I want you to be happy. Hell, I want _me_ to be happy. That is why I've filed for divorce the other day. Well, I met with a lawyer last week, the papers will officially be filed sometime this week, and then you will be served a copy at your parent's house. I figured that would be the best arrangement. Sorry, I guess it's not my call where you go, but I would appreciate it if I could stay at the house."

She did what? Was she serious? She was letting me out of this? I sat there staring at her for along time. I really didn't know what to say to her. My parent's place was probably the best place for me to go. Alice had the baby and I had this strong suspicion that Rose and Emmett were trying to get pregnant. I definitely did not want to be around for that. I nodded a few more times before I was able to regain my ability to speak. "What about Ethan?"

"I'm hoping that we could come to a friendly agreement about custody. I thought joint custody, but with him living with me primarily and visits with you. You'll see him everyday after school until I pick him up and then maybe every other weekend. We can work out details later. I think we should just take some time and let this sink in a bit. I just don't want this to turn into a big battle."

I sat there staring at the food that had just been placed in front of me. I didn't want to fight with her either. I was no longer hungry and from the way that Tanya was pushing her food around the plate in front of her, she had lost her appetite too. I nodded…again…and just said, "Ok," because really, what else could be said.

A/N: I guess I can reveal now that the inspiration for this story is Bonnie Raitt's song "I can't make you love me." This chapter is what I centered the whole story on.

Thank you everyone for reviewing. All reviews will get a teaser. Unless you don't want one, just let me know.

Thank you to Sweetpea123 for working her magic on cleaning this up. She is about to get the next chapter tonight and she also got the Living Life outtake for Fandom4autism. I


	15. Chapter 15

ASL Chapter 15

Shock

EPOV:

Mom was shocked when she came home from their trip to the museum and found me at the house. Mom, Dad, and I sat and had a long conversation over dinner that evening and I told them everything that I had been feeling. They had had no idea that Tanya and I had problems that ran so deep. As soon as Mom was satisfied that I was really alright, she grabbed the phone and called to check on Tanya. I left the room to give them some privacy for their call. I was glad that Mom was looking after Tanya. I may not love her enough to be with her, but she doesn't deserve to be left without any moral support or a sense of family nearby. That would be wrong on every level. I knew that my parents were really torn about it, and I told them that I didn't want the divorce to affect their relationship with her negatively. We were just doing what was best and trying to remain on friendly terms. It would help if the rest of the family supported both of us on that as well.

Mom, Dad, and I decided that as amazing as Bella was, she was getting a little to close to the situation to be truly objective, so they were going to pay for me to start seeing an actual psychiatrist. I was still going to be working with Bella on my recovery; I just needed to talk to someone who was totally detached from the situation.

Ethan threw a fit the first couple of nights, wanting me to come home and put him to bed. Tanya called me and let him talk to me, and I promised that he would see me all the time and he could call whenever he wanted. He seemed pacified by that and by the third night he was calmly asking to call me to say good night.

I was planning on talking to Tanya about the possibility of using some of the money from our savings account to buy myself a cheap used car, but Dad decided that it was time for Mom to get a new car and was going to keep her old car for me to drive until I was able to get on my feet. It really made me stop and think what Bella kept trying to tell me about my family not being disappointed in me. We sat down and talked for hours about me staying with them for as long as I needed to and deciding what I wanted to do. Mom wasn't necessarily sure that going back through college was the right decision for me, though.

Bella was due to fly home to Seattle this afternoon and I was to go pick her up, take her home to drop off her stuff, and then go to meet Em and Jas at the bar to watch the game. I was waiting, as planned, at the luggage carousel for her to make it in from the gates. I was shocked when I first saw her. She had most definitely spent a lot of time in the sun while in Florida. I grabbed her and hugged her as soon as she got to me, "How was your trip?" She wasn't too close to me and my situation. Nope.

"It was great and very relaxing, which is surprising since I was with my mom. She redefines the term "hyperactive". How was your Christmas? Did Santa bring you everything on your list?"

"Yeah, actually he did. Tanya filed for divorce." Ok. Perhaps that wasn't the best time to tell her that. I ended up startling her so much that she walked right into the door, knocking her on her butt.

"She what?" Bella exclaimed as I helped her get to her feet.

"She hired a lawyer and left me."

"Oh my God! Where are you living? What about Ethan? I….I…wow…just wow." 

I told her about moving in with my parents and all the decisions that had been made, and the fact that I had an appointment to talk with a psychiatrist soon. She agreed that is was a good idea, considering everything that I was going through. She simply did not have enough training to help me with all of my problems.

I had yet to tell my sisters and their husbands. I hadn't really talked to them on the phone and they were all busy working so I hadn't seen any of them. When Bella and I walked into the bar and I realized that my sisters had tagged along with their husbands, I knew that there was no time like the present. To say that they were shocked was an understatement. I didn't take it as hard as my family did which, as I pointed out to them, should show that this was the right decision. This was the first time that we had all gone out as a group, well that I could remember, anyway. We had a great time cheering on the Seahawks and drinking.

I came back to the bar a few nights later on my own to just have a drink after my first session with my psychiatrist. After a long talk with Garrett, the owner of the bar, I left so excited that I went straight over to Bella's apartment. She was the first person that I thought of that I wanted to tell. I should have thought this through and realized that she might not be alone, and I really shouldn't have been surprised when Seth answered the door.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your date. I just, I just didn't think. I just wanted to share some good news with Bella."

"Seth? Who is at the door?" Bella called from the kitchen.

"It's Edward. He says he has some good news," then he turned back to me, "come on in, man, she was just about to force me to watch Rugby."

I walked in Bella's living room as she came out of the kitchen, "You want a beer?"

"Nah. I really can't stay. I wanted to tell you that I got a job."

"That's great Edward! Where at?"

"Garrett's. I'm going to be a bartender." After a lot of congratulations from the two of them and three drinks that they both demanded that I stay and have, I was finally able to leave and go home to share my good news with my family. It was so weird, it was like neither one of them wanted me to leave them…and leave them alone with each other. I probably would have laughed at them if the situation hadn't scared me just a little bit.

Over the next few days I spent my free time studying the recipe cards that Garrett had loaned me. He told me that most people that come in will just order beer but a few will want fancy drinks. Mom and Dad were thrilled that I found something that excited me this much. Mom and Dad were helping me by tasting the drinks as I attempted to make them. There were only a few that were complicated and took a few tries to get them right, but Garrett told me that I could always look at the recipe cards if I was in doubt. He still keeps them under the bar because he needs to peek once in a while himself.

My first night was on Thursday and it felt like I was jumping into the deep end of the pool. I would either sink or swim and I was determined to swim. It was busy because there was a game on. I made a few mistakes throughout the night, but Garrett was happy with my work and we made a good amount of tips. I even had a few girls slip me their phone numbers. I wasn't sure if I should be interested or not, or if it was alright to be interested. They were cute girls, but Tanya and I had to wait ninety days to finalize the divorce so surely I should at least wait until then. Right? Maybe not. I don't know. Life was so confusing.

After only a week of working for Garrett, I knew that bartending was my new career path in life. Now that school had started back I would pick up Ethan after class everyday and keep him until Tanya got off work, except for Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Those were my nights off and I kept Ethan till bedtime before taking him home. He was going to get to stay with me for the whole weekend starting right after school on Friday. Tanya and I knew that we were going to need to sit down and put everything to paper and figure out what we were doing. We had plans to meet for lunch next weekend. I think we were both ready to move on.

BPOV:

There was a part of me that never want to get on that plane and return to Washington. That part was currently lying on the warm sunny beach drinking her third watermelon daiquiri of the afternoon. I moved my feet off the lounge chair and buried them into the hot sand, "Are you rethinking living in the deep freeze up North?" Phil was Mom's latest boyfriend. He was alright but not the kind of guy that she usually dated. She usually went for younger guys, but Phil was older than her and a pharmaceuticals salesman and on the road a lot.

"Nope. I'm just enjoying the warmth and sunshine while I can." Like Mom, he could not understand how I could choose the icy cold of the north over the warmth and sunshine of the south.

I spent some time catching up with a few friends from college while I was in Florida. I went out one night to a bar that my good friend Angela and I liked to frequent. When I turned to question her when she ordered a soda instead of a beer, I was shocked to see a smile on her face.

"But you broke up with Ben three months ago! How? When? How far along are you?"

"I'm four months along. And he is still going to marry Heidi and doesn't want the baby."

"What a jackass! I'm sorry but really! To think that once upon a time, we both thought he was a good guy." I couldn't believe that Ben was just going to turn his back on Angela and his child. "If I ever find him, I am going to castrate him. I'm sure that I would be able to get Emmett and his brothers-in-law to help me."

"Emmett? As in the high school Emmett that I've heard so much about? Something you want to share with me?"

I laughed, "I literally ran into him at the hospital when I was assigned to help his brother-in-law, Edward, after a bad car accident. Emmett is happily married."

"So are you seeing anyone?"

"Not really." I didn't want to get into whatever it was that I had going on with Seth with her. I didn't think it was working out as it was, so there really was no point in talking about a semi-relationship that was most likely going to be very short-lived.

My mother reluctantly let me board the plane a few days later, but with a lot of tears. She outright laughed at me when I reminded her that she was always welcome to come visit me in Washington. She had not ventured north since she fled Washington with me when I was a baby. I wondered if I'd be able to convince her to come to Washington if I ever got married. Maybe I'd have a winter wedding just to force her to endure snow again and see how wonderful it was.

I didn't realize that I had not actually talked to Edward or anyone in his family since I left for Florida. I had thought about them frequently. I was worried about him and his situation, but I didn't know what I could do to help him. Professionally, marital issues were not something that I would deal with. Personally, I was invested because of my friendship with Emmett that had expanded to include Edward. I had grown to care about all of them very much and I didn't want to see anyone miserable or hurt. It was really becoming quite difficult to maintain my professional distance from the situation. Thankfully Edward wouldn't need me much longer and then I would just be their friend, and everything would be simpler. It wasn't until I got off the plane and saw Edward there waiting for me that I realized just how much I had missed all of them.

I totally embarrassed myself by walking in a door when Edward announced that Tanya had filed for divorce. I totally did not see that one coming or the door apparently. I wondered what had spurred her into that decision. It seemed to come completely out of nowhere. I would have to talk to her soon, but I was also having relationship issues of my own right now.

Seth was a great guy with a great career as a radiologist, but I just don't feel any romantic connection with him. We had met at the hospital cafeteria and got to talking. We hit it off great at first, but when we tried to take it to a romantic level something was way off. I knew that I was going to have to deal with it soon because he was too nice of a guy to lead on. I decided to give it one last chance so I invited him over for dinner.

Staying in, alone, may have been my big mistake. From the moment that he arrived, things were weird between us. Neither of were able to really hold a conversation beyond two or three sentences. The tension in the room was getting thicker by the minute. Unfortunately, it wasn't the good kind of tension. I was two seconds from feigning a migraine so that he would leave. I was horrible to even consider that. I think we were both relieved when Edward showed up. When Seth nearly held the man hostage to get him to stay and hang out with us, I nearly started laughing. I mean, it would have been funny if the two of us hadn't been so pathetically desperate for a buffer.

Once Edward escaped, Seth and I sat down to have a long talk and basically just stared at each other until I started laughing. Seth looked at me like I was crazy for all of a minute before he was laughing with me and then said, "I don't think that I've ever been on a more awkward date. Seriously, I was just begging another guy to stay and join our date!" 

"I know!" I exclaimed. After I had a chance to calm down a little I sighed as he took my hand in his.

"Yeah. So…friends?"

"I like friends. Dinner's ready. Do you still want to have a friendly dinner with me and then watch the game?" 

"Definitely." The rest of the evening was calm and relaxing and we were really able to enjoy each other's company. He left that night with both of us confident that we'd made the right decision.

As for Edward, I was thrilled that he not only found a job but one that he was so excited about. He had a great personality and would make a great bartender. I was so proud of him for the way that he was getting his life in order. He didn't know, but I came to the bar on his first night at work. I sat in the corner where I could watch him and still be out of his range of sight. I just wanted to make sure that he was alright. I smiled as I watched him succeed. Even though he made a few mistakes, all in all his night was a success. I wasn't all that happy when these tramps kept slipping him their numbers. I didn't know why it was bothering me so much. Tanya filed for divorce so he was free to do what he wanted, and it was probably good for him to mess around a little with those women while he attempted to 'grow up' again. But there was just something about it that was irritating me.

I left the bar when Alice texted me, asking where I was. I really didn't want to tell her that I was stalking and spying on her brother. That wouldn't be weird at all. I went straight over to Alice and Jasper's house. She wanted me to look at a couple of things that she designed with me in mind. Rose was there when I got there. She was sprawled out on the couch and told me that Alice would be down in a minute. She was just putting Aiden to bed.

"I feel weird though that she designed something for me."

"Get over it. She does it for all of us. And I can guarantee you that it is some things…plural. She's a real good judge of people and what kind of clothes they like to wear and are comfortable in, and won't go against it. Her motto is 'happy customers who like to wear the clothes they buy will come back to buy more." It was evident that Alice was very good at business. She was also able to save herself a lot of money by making her children's clothes instead of having to pay outrageous prices to buy things that the kids would only wear for a couple of weeks before they outgrew them.

Alice came downstairs a little while later carrying a bunch of garment bags. My shock must have been written on my face because Rose just snorted and said, "Told you."

"Be quiet, Rosalie, because some of these are for you." Alice opened the first bag to reveal a couple of pairs of jeans and a couple of casual shirts. The jeans were deep purple in color and fit me perfectly. There was only one problem, "Alice these are amazing, and I love them, but I have nothing to wear with them."

She said nothing but smile as she walked over the next bag and opened it to reveal an absolutely gorgeous lavender, hand crocheted, sweater. "Oh! I am so jealous. I want one of those! When did you learn to knit anyway?" Rose complained.

Alice rolled her eyes, "It's crocheting, not knitting. There is a difference." I didn't know what that difference was but I loved the sweater. "I learned while I was pregnant with Aiden and I've had an instructor helping me. It's really quite easy. This took less than a month to do."

"Yeah. With you anything that has to do with sewing comes easy."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, little sister," Alice laughed as she opened the rest of the bags, "I'm starting yours next. I chose deep blue for you because of your hair, eyes, and complexion."

We spent the next two hours trying on clothes and drinking beer while Alice made little adjustments here and there. By the time I left I had two new pairs of jeans, five new shirts, and three new, very beautiful, and very, very sexy nightgowns.


	16. Chapter 16

ASL Chapter 16

Time Goes On

**Epov:**

"I'm sorry but I need to take this. It's Tanya." I said to the beautiful woman who was my date tonight. She smiled and nodded for me to go ahead, "Hey. What's up?"

"Ethan wanted to know if you would like to join us for breakfast tomorrow before we take him to school."

It had been almost two years since Tanya and I got divorced and tomorrow we would be taking our son for his first day of kindergarten. He was incredibly smart and had dealt with everything so well. He had reminded me daily for the last couple of weeks not to forget his first day of school. A couple of weeks ago Tanya and I both took him out to shop for school supplies.

We were able to make it through our divorce quite amicably. I let her keep the house and the car, and I took the money in our savings account and we went our separate ways, for the most part. We were both very active in our roles as parents to Ethan. We got together to do something with Ethan as a family at least once a month. Usually it was lunch or dinner and a movie. But what we really wanted him to know is that we were both here for him even if things did get awkward between us at times

I had moved out of my parent's house and into my own apartment not far from the bar. It worked out better because I worked so late at night and Mom was always freaking out about me driving when I was tired. I understood her position and I didn't want her to worry any more so I had her help me find the place and furnish it. Not only was it within walking distance to the bar, but Bella's apartment as well.

Mom made sure that my place was in a good neighborhood as I would have Ethan staying with me a lot. Those first few overnight visits were a bit difficult as I did not know how to cook much, but I tried. With some help from Emmett, I was able to learn to make a few things that were healthy and edible.

Tanya and I didn't always see eye to eye on everything. As soon as the divorce was final and I had my own place I started hooking up with random girls that I met at the bar. There weren't a lot of them, although the way Tanya behaved you'd think that I'd had a line of women out my door every night, or that I was hiring hookers or something like that. But I will admit that I did go a bit wild for like the first year before I met a girl that I dated for a while. That ended about six months ago when I broke up with her because we were having a major difference of opinion regarding the subject of marriage. She wanted to marry me but I did not want to marry her. She was pissed and did not take me breaking up with her well at all. She started throwing things at me and swearing at me and threatening me. I called Rose and had her come over to get Allison out of the apartment to avoid her trying to sock a domestic abuse charge on me or anything.

I was relieved that I had never introduced her to Ethan. It was a rule that Tanya and I had agreed to during my 'wild period'; no introducing the person that we are dating until we know that it is serious. Tanya was the only one that met that requirement so far. She started dating this clown named Felix a few months after our divorce. I'm not being mean; the guy works as a clown. She'd hired him to perform at Ethan's fourth birthday party and by the end of the afternoon he'd asked her out on a date. They've been together ever since. Six months ago, they decided that Felix was going to move into the house with Tanya and Ethan. I was glad that she had found love again and was happy in her life. I was really happy that it helped bring Tanya and me to a new understanding and calm in our lives as co-parents.

I'd spent the last six months alone but I've been quite busy. Garrett decided that he was ready to retire and move south with his wife, so he offered to sell me the bar. It took a couple of months to get the loan from the bank to go through, they demanded a co-signer, and although my parents offered I was reluctant to take them up on their offer. Mom finally convinced me to do it by taking me to lunch and kept at me about all the reasons that they wanted to help me with this, until I finally agreed to it. So for the last four months I've been the happy owner of Garrett's. I really didn't change anything. I figured since everything was going well and I already had a good, happy customer base, I'd leave unbroken things unfixed.

A couple of weeks ago Bella got a call from her friend Angela, who was in tears. She had lost her job and had been unable to find another one and was about to be evicted from her apartment. Bella convinced Angela that she should move to Seattle and stay with her until she could get on her feet. Angela wasn't really in a position to argue since she had a fifteen month old little girl to worry about.

Bella asked me if I would help her move Angela and her daughter across the country. Did she actually think that I would say no? I knew that she wouldn't want to ask Emmett, he and Rose were finally able to get her pregnant and their twin daughters were only six weeks old. Jasper and Alice had just taken in his cousin's seven year old daughter temporarily. Maria was a single mother in the service and was being stationed overseas in a country where she couldn't take Lucy with her. She was an adorable little thing and very polite, and the whole family had fallen in love with her immediately.

So I left the bar in my family's capable hands and flew to Florida with Bella to help her move her friend to Washington. Angela's car got repossessed just days before we arrived, so Bella and I put her and Mia on a plane and drove a U-haul packed with Angela's belongings back to Washington. I was also able to meet Bella's mom and her boyfriend while in Florida. Her mom was a very unique person. I was glad that she lived on the other side of the country, to be honest.

I wasn't blind. I knew that Bella was a beautiful woman and I had been attracted to her, on some level, since the day I had met her. We had a special friendship that was hard to define. We were close and we confided in each other about most things in our lives. We hung out whenever we had free time. She was not only one of my best customers, but she was always willing to pitch in and help out at the bar. Not that my family wasn't willing to help, because they were, and had helped me quite often. Bella was just Bella. I would make sure that if there was a rugby game on, it was playing on a TV in the bar, just for her. But it was during those four days sitting in that truck alone together and sharing hotel rooms that something sparked between us and led us to be sitting here on a date together.

I realized that I was still sitting on the phone and had yet to answer Tanya, "Sure. I'll be there for breakfast but right now I need to go. I'm…uh…I'm on a date with Bella."

"Bella Swan?" I was a tad worried about how Tanya was going to take that. I knew that she and Bella were friends. I mean, they weren't best friends but they did hang out together on occasion.

"Yeah."

"Edward, that's great. But why the hell would you take a call from your ex-wife while on a date! Oh my God. I'm going to hang up and you apologize to her right now." She hung up the phone before I could respond to her.

"Sorry about that. It's just…"

"I understand, Edward. I know that Ethan starts kindergarten tomorrow. Alice has been crying about Kara starting too. She designed a special dress for Kara to wear tomorrow. She's been fussing with it for weeks."

"That sounds like Alice." We finished our dinner and went for a walk down at the pier for awhile. Not wanting the night to end just yet, I took her for an ice cream cone for dessert. We talked and we joked around while we walked. I loved to hear Bella laugh.

Unfortunately, we had reached the end of our night and I had to take her home. When we reached her building I walked her into it and up to her door. As we stood in front of her door in absolute silence, I kept a hold of her hand. I moved my free hand up to her face, leaned forward and kissed her before I asked her for a second date. She smiled and giggled a little before responding, "I would love to go out with you again." I kissed her again before waiting for her to go into the apartment. I listened for her to lock the doors before turning and leaving. I wasn't ready to go home just yet so I headed to the bar to check on things and do some paperwork.

**Bpov:**

Angela had called me sobbing and terrified. She had lost her job a couple of months ago due to the office she worked for being shut down. The doctor had died quite suddenly. She told me that her car had been repossessed last week, she was behind on the rent, and now she found a notice that she was being evicted. I told her to stay put and start packing, help was on the way. I called Mom and luckily Phil was home, so they went to Angela's, packed her up, and brought her and her daughter back to their house. That night I called Angela and we talked for a couple of hours and by the time we hung up I had her convinced to move to Seattle.

I was nervous to ask Edward to come with me to help. He just bought the bar and needed to be there. But his parents were more than happy to run the bar for him in his absence. Emmett volunteered to pick up Angela and her daughter, Mia, from the airport. He had seen her picture in my apartment and knew exactly who to look for. According to what Angela told me, she was walking through the airport when this huge guy grabbed her and hugged her. She was about to scream for security when she realized that it was Emmett. Edward had showed her a picture of him from his phone so she would know who to look for at the airport, just to be safe. Emmett drove them back to my apartment where Rose and the twins were waiting for them, got them settled, and took care of them until Edward and I made it home.

I was so furious with her ex-boyfriend, Ben. That man better hope he never runs into me or Edward and his brothers-in-law. That was another reason I didn't take Emmett with me. He would have snuck out and gone after the guy. Edward, I knew, wouldn't do anything stupid like that. He wasn't worth going to jail over, he was a loser whose precious daughter was fifteen months old and he had never bothered to try to see her. Angela had called him and told him about Mia being born. He didn't even respond to her, he just hung up the phone. That was the last time Angela attempted to involve him. She didn't even put Ben's name on the birth certificate. I don't understand how a father could treat their child that way. My main solace is that one day he will regret pushing them away and it will be too late.

Edward was a good guy and a great friend. He was always there if I needed him. I loved the way that he cared about Tanya, even if he didn't love her or was married to her anymore. If she needed help, he'd find a way to help or get her the help. It wasn't unusual for Edward to be that way. He would help any of us out if we needed it. There were a few times that he had had to ask us for help. I actually loved working beside him behind the bar. I've done that a couple times while he was looking for someone to work for him permanently. It was hard to find someone dependable. Just before we left for Florida he found a girl that was great. Jane was a seasoned bartender that loved to entertain the customers with stories and jokes as she filled orders. She could mesmerize a crowd with her personality. The guys that hit on her thought she was joking when she told them if they get too fresh with her, her girlfriend would beat them up. I've met Heidi and I'll tell you that I'd be afraid of angering her. I'm just saying…

If I was being truly honest with myself I had wanted to be with Edward for a long time. I knew that I was attracted to him before he and Tanya got divorced, but there was no way that I'd ever have acted on it then. I don't go out with married men. I don't care how bad the marriage is, you leave before you cheat. Not that Edward would have cheated on Tanya. He wasn't that type of guy. I mean he was willing to stay with her for the rest of his life and be miserable, knowing that he was never going to love her the way he did before the accident, just to honor the commitment that he had made her. Then right after the divorce he went a little wild. I didn't blame him for that at all but again, I was not interested in being a notch on his belt so I sat back and let him get over it. I think that it was a good thing for him to do. I know that he's been a lot happier and settled since he got it out of his system.

I didn't just sit around home waiting for Edward to 'grow up'. I dated a little bit here and there. I knew that there was never going to be a guarantee that Edward and I would ever go out with each other. He had never shown any indication that he was even interested in going out with me until we spent four days in a U-Haul together. Then there was the sharing of the hotel rooms. It wasn't that we could afford separate rooms; just that neither of us saw a need to waste money for two rooms when there were two beds in one room. It went fine on the first night, but that second night we had stopped and picked up some beer after dinner and drank it in our room while watching a movie. Not that I am saying that we did anything improper.

We were both lying on what would be my bed watching the movie and laughing at how corny it was when it happened. I admit that I started it by grabbing the pillow out from behind his head and smacking him with it. He tried to grab the pillow back from me, which only started a tug of war. I still have not figured out how it happened but I suddenly I was straddling him, trying to beat him with the pillow, when he got it away from me. It was when I leaned forward that I looked down in his eyes. It happened before I realized what was going on; he grabbed my face and kissed me. It was an amazing kiss and it was a little heated but it didn't go beyond that. I wouldn't have let anything more happen even if he had tried. I wasn't that type of lady.

It wasn't until we got back to Seattle and he was getting ready to leave to go home, promising to come back in the morning to unload the truck with the help of Emmett and Jasper that he asked me out on a date. I didn't need to think about it, I just said yes. He kissed my cheek and left. After he left, I started thinking about Tanya and wondering how she was going to take this. She was my friend and I didn't want her to be mad at me, but I really wanted to go on this date with Edward. She really didn't have any room to be upset, if you ask me. They've been divorced for a while and she was living with another man, and it wasn't like Edward and I were having an affair before they split up. Damn. Then I realized that I sounded like I was trying to justify it.

I had to get my mind on another subject so I called my dad and told him that I was home safe and sound. He asked me when I was going to come to Forks to visit him again and I promised that I would try to get down there soon. It might be nice to take Angela down there with me, too. She'd enjoy the peace and quiet of the small town.

I had an amazing time on my date with Edward. He must have, too, since he asked me out for a second date. When I got inside after Edward brought me home from our date, I found Angela waiting for me with a couple of beers from the fridge. We sat on the couch while I told her about every second of my date with Edward and we gossiped like teenage girls.

Angela had only been living here for a few days and already I loved it. I had always thought that I enjoyed the solitude of living alone, but having them there in the evening was great. Since Edward only lived a couple of blocks from the bar and normally walked to and from work he was letting Angela use his car. Esme had offered to watch Mia until Angela could find a job and afford day care. I knew that it wouldn't take her long. I had insisted that she move up here as I knew of several places that were hiring pediatric oncology nurses. That right there proved what a strong woman she was. I don't think that I would have to the emotional strength to work in that field.

I went to bed thinking about Edward and our date, both the one that we'd been on tonight and the one that we had planned. I wondered where he'd take me and what we'd do. Then I thought back to my promise to my dad to come home and wondered if Edward would like to drive down with us. Never before had I wanted to introduce a guy I was seeing as my boyfriend, mainly for their safety. Edward, though, had nothing to worry about with my police chief dad, Charlie already loved the guy. Although, that could be because Edward promised to always give him all the free beer he wants when he visits me in Seattle.

A/N: Happy Saturday! It's almost Saturday here. I am off to the Amana Colonies in the morning and won't be back until Sunday night. Unless I get arrested for sneaking into the pool of the hotel next to ours then my return will be delayed, which consequently would delay the next posting of Living Life.

Ok. First I need to say a big thank you to Sweetpea123 for betaing this and a few other things I've sent her way. Chapter 17 is done and on its way to her tonight and 18 is over half way done. Reviews will get a teaser!

Next I want to tell you about a little one shot that I'm writing for No Kid Hungry. There are a lot of kids out there that don't get anything to eat after lunch on at school of Fridays and breakfast at school on Monday. Summer is coming and these children will have to suffer longer waits between mealtimes. This cannot continue. Please think about donating to this cause or to your local food bank.

The title of the One-shot is A Path Less Taken. Summary: Edward is a rich spoiled brat with a tragic past. Bella has her own demons she's had to fight and runs the Homeless Shelter that Edward is assigned to for his community service after his latest DUI arrest. (author's warning: I've wanted to junk punch this Edward several times already)


	17. Chapter 17

ASL Chapter 17

Happy Days

**EPOV:**

Bella and I did have that second date. And a third. And a fourth. And many more times of getting together just to hang out in-between since our first date a month ago. Things were going so well in my life I sometimes worried that the bottom would drop out and my life would fall apart again.

Rose called me last night and asked me over for an early dinner tonight. It wasn't unusual for my mom and sisters to try to get me over for meals to keep me from eating takeout too much. Rose met me at the door carrying a fussing Skylar with her. I grabbed the baby from her arms and followed her back to the living room where Emma Rose was sleeping in the baby swing. I loved how they found a way to name one of their daughters after both of them.

We sat there and talked, mostly about my new relationship with Bella, until Emmett came in and told us that dinner was ready. I knew that Rose was not trying to be nosy, she was just, as she put it, 'making sure I didn't screw this up.' I was doing my best not to. Both Rose and Emmett were really nervous as we took our seats around the dinner table. Emmett had set out several trays of appetizers on the table.

"They are called Tapas, or small plates of food that are meant to be shared. They are becoming more and more popular right now. A lot of restaurants are adding them to their existing menus and new restaurants are opening featuring nothing but tapas."

Emmett explained what was on each plate. There was too much food for just the three of us but I attempted to try a little of everything. Emmett was an amazing cook. I really thought that he was wasting his life working in the corporate world. I kept telling him to go for his dreams and live for today. He would always look at Rose and say that he wasn't ready to take the risk. I stopped pushing him after Rose had the twins. It took until then to realize that they were his ultimate dream and all he really needed to be happy in life.

"So what did you think?" Rose asked when Emmett retreated to the kitchen with a couple of empty platters.

"I love Emmett's cooking. I've told you before that I'd be here for dinner every night if I could." 

"What if you _could_ eat Emmett's cooking every night?"

"What do you mean?"

"She means that when I was helping out at the bar when you were off with Bella, I found a lot of unused equipment in the kitchen that is still in amazing shape. I thought that I could prepare a Tapas menu like the food I served you tonight and sell it at the bar. More like I'd own and run the kitchen and you'd own and run the bar."

That was an interesting idea. Garrett told me that he'd tried it once before because he'd heard that people tend to drink more when they are eating, but he couldn't make a go of it. The cooks kept quitting and he couldn't afford one that was high quality. He wasn't interested in working in a kitchen all night, every night, so he quit doing it. But Emmett dreamed of doing this kind of thing and he was good at it. This could work out. "You realize what a time commitment this is, right? That Emmett will be at the bar nearly every night till the early morning hours?"

"Yes. We've talked about that. We are prepared for that. Plus, if this works out the way we hope it does, you could both start taking off two nights a week." They were right. Garrett only worked five day weeks when he owned the bar. I would love to be able to spend more time with Ethan and Bella. Between Jane, Emmett, and I, I think this could really work out great.

"Let's go for it. But don't you think the term 'tapas' is a little pretentious for a sports bar?"

"We can call it something else. The term doesn't matter so much. We just need to set a menu and get a license to sell food." We spent some time going over everything else that we thought we were going to need, and hoped to start serving by the beginning of the next month.

Bella surprised me the next night me by showing up at the bar with a pizza after her shift at the hospital. It was a quiet night for us since it was a Tuesday and there were no huge sporting events going on. Jane told me that she had everything under control and to take a break. After Bella ensured that Jane got a couple of slices, we retreated to my office with the rest of the pizza and a couple of beers.

After we were finished eating I poked my head out of the office and saw that Jane still had everything under control, so I grabbed Bella and pulled her down on the couch with me until we were both lying side by side. We kissed for awhile, then I told her about my dinner about Emmett and Rose's the day before and that we decided to go for it. Then we kissed some more. She told me that Emmett had come to her and asked her opinion on his idea and if he should even bother to bring it up and she told him to go for it. She said that she thought it sounded like a great idea. Then I kissed her a lot more. Pretty soon, I had to put a stop to what we were doing. I didn't want our first time being together to be on the couch in my office. For her it had to be special. It had to be right, because there was no way that I was going to screw this up like that, by being stupid.

Finally we had to leave the seclusion of my office and rejoin the real world. "Don't forget Dad is coming up tomorrow to go to lunch with us."

"I'll be there. I promise." I kissed her once more before she turned and left the bar. "Call me when you get home so I know you made it there safely," I yelled out to her as she walked out the door. She waved in response and then was gone.

The rest of the night remained just as quiet and I ended up sending Jane home and closing up alone. The walk back to my apartment was always peaceful in these early morning hours. There were never many people out, as most people were tucked away in their warm beds, like I knew that Bella was. I didn't realized that I had taken a detour over to her place until I was standing there staring at her apartment building. I was so tempted to show up at her door begging for one more kiss goodnight but I didn't want to wake her, or Angela and Mia.

That is when it hit me. Damn it if it wasn't absolutely crazy and impulsive, and a little bit insane, but it felt so right. I really wanted to do this more than I had wanted anything. My family was going to think that I had completely lost it, but I didn't care one bit. All I really cared about was first, getting Bella to agree, and second, putting my plan in motion. I turned to head on home to my apartment but I knew that I was not going to get to sleep anytime soon. I was too excited and hyped up to get any sleep now. I went straight to my kitchen table wanting to set my plan in motion immediately. I just had to get everyone to agree to help me.

**BPOV:**

Being with Edward made me happier than I had been in a very long time. I would love to say that I was the master of my own happiness but I can't. It was all Edward's doing. It was a fact and I never wanted anything to change that. The plus was that Tanya had been so great about him and me going out, too. She told me, the first time I saw her after our first date, that there were so many times that she didn't even recognize Edward as the man that she married. She was happy in her current relationship and wasn't going to deny either of us the chance to be that happy.

Angela was just taking Mia out of the bathtub when I got home from my surprise dinner with Edward. They had been here almost a month now and Angela had started her new job last week. Her new boss was a pediatric oncologist with a private office. That is where she worked most of the time, so her hours were quite steady during the day. She did have to do some nighttime and weekend on-call hours, and I told her that with everyone around here willing to help out, someone would be able to take care of Mia for her. She had spent so long doing everything on her own that it was hard for her to grasp that she had people around her that wanted to be there and help them. That there were people that cared. Just like the Cullen's easily welcomed me into their family, they welcomed her with the same ease and open arms.

Angela and I curled up on the couch to watch Chopped on the Food Network before going to bed. Emmett had gotten us both hooked on the show. I was excited to see my Dad tomorrow. I didn't get to see him enough and I saw my mother even less. He knew that I was dating Edward now and that he was joining us for lunch, but I didn't foresee any problems. Dad liked Edward, and while he was surprised that we were dating, he was actually quite happy about it. He knew that Edward was a good guy from a good family.

My phone went off, waking me up an hour before the alarm was set to go off. One glance at the phone told me that it was the school of one of my patients with Autism. I groaned and answered it, knowing that I was going to have to go to the school if it was bad enough that they were calling me on my day off.

I called Edward on my way out of the door, asking him to come by my place and wait for Dad to get here and I'd be back just as soon as I could. He told me not to worry about it, they'd be just fine. I got to the school to find that the little boy in question was in the corner screaming and wouldn't even let his parents touch him. The psychiatrist was on his way, but we really needed to attempt to calm Josiah down as soon as possible. This wasn't the first time he'd lost control this bad. Three hours later, an ambulance left to take the sedated child to the hospital and we had decided that the best place for Josiah, for now, was a group home. He just could not cope with life well enough to be in a place that chaos reigned. It sucked big time. He was such a sweet boy and he couldn't help it when he lost control. I felt like I had failed him in some way.

By the time I got back to my apartment Dad was there, and he and Edward were deep in a conversation and laughing hard. I was thrilled that they got along so well. It cemented that feeling deep inside me that being with Edward was right. I was totally and completely in love with the guy. I kissed them both on the cheek and ran off to my room to change out of my work clothes. I was not going to lunch with them in a business suit.

We went to a burger joint that dad like to go to whenever he came to Seattle. Lunch was great and a lot of fun. I just kept getting this odd feeling that they were keeping something from me, like they had conspired against me while I was off dealing with Josiah. I just could not shake that feeling that something was off.

We finished eating and then took Dad to see Edward's bar. He hadn't seen it yet and I think he was thoroughly impressed by it. After a couple of beers we left Edward there to get some paperwork done, while I spent some time alone with Dad before he had to start his drive back to Forks.

I called Edward to tell him that Dad had left and he asked me if I'd like to join him for dinner. "You're taking the night off from the bar?"

"Yeah, Jane has everything under control. I trust her. I really want to spend the evening with you."

I laughed, "We spent most of the day with each other, but I would love to spend more time with you. How fast can you get here?" He didn't say another word. He knocked on my door instead.

"Is this fast enough," he asked as he grabbed me and kissed me.

"Maybe we could just stay in and keep doing this some more," I suggested with a wink.

"No. I have plans for you tonight. Let's go."

He took me to a little café down at Pike's Place that we both liked. I was suffering a bit of a sweet tooth so we took a piece of cake home that we could share. We sat on the couch, watching a movie while he fed us the cake. Actually, he would give me a bite and then kiss me, then take a bite himself and kiss me again. It was the most romantic thing I think that I'd ever done. When I couldn't eat another bite he set the plate down on the coffee table, and what he did next very nearly made me pass out.

**EPOV:**

It couldn't have worked out better that Bella had to go see a patient and I was going to get time alone with Charlie. I had been worried how I was going to talk to him without Bella realizing what was going on.

I explain my whole thought process to Charlie as we sat in Bella's living room, waiting for her to get home. Thank God he was all for it. I was nervous and stressed all afternoon, but I was able to hide it well. At least I think I did. Bella never said anything if it showed. I had called my mother while I was waiting for Charlie to get here and she promised to meet me this afternoon after I split from Bella and her father. We had gone back to the bar and had a couple of 'after lunch beers'. I eventually excused myself, saying that I had paperwork to do. Bella bought it. I knew she would. I usually had a lot of paperwork and ordering to do. Charlie knew better. I had told him exactly what I was going to be up to this afternoon. I had told Mom and Charlie what I was doing. Mom would tell Dad, I was sure of that. They never kept secrets from each other and this would constitute a big-ass secret. I told her that I didn't want anyone else to know, for fear of jinxing the whole thing.

After dinner I took her back to my place for dessert. When I finished feeding it to the both of us, I moved to drop to one knee and pulled out the ring that Mom had helped me pick out this afternoon. "Bella, I know that this is impulsive and maybe a bit crazy. But I love you so much and I want you to be my wife. I want to hold you and protect you. I want to love and cherish you every day of my life. Will you marry me?"

She sat there staring at the ring that was in my hand that I was offering to her. Bella and her dad hadn't been gone but mere seconds this afternoon when Mom walked in the door with Mia in tow. She said they saw them leave the bar and stayed hidden around the side of the building until she was sure they were going and wouldn't see her and Mia. I locked the place back up and we headed out immediately. While Mom drove us to the store I gave her all the fine details of my plan, including feeding her the desert. She was thrilled and said that Dad was, too. It wasn't easy to find the ring that was meant to be Bella's. We had to go to three different jewelry shops before I finally found it.

I looked at her and realized that she was still sitting there staring at me in shock, so I leaned forward and put my hand on her cheek and kissed her lightly.

"Edward, this _is_ crazy and impulsive."

"I know, sweetheart, but nothing else had felt this right. And whether I asked you tonight, six months from now, or even a year or two; I would be asking you to marry me. I love you, Bella."

That seemed to get her attention. She got the biggest smile on her face right before she threw herself at me, screaming 'yes' and kissing me. I managed to pull back from her assault to get the ring on her finger. It was a little big on her and we were going to have to take it to be sized. I knew it was going to be, since I had to buy it without knowing Bella's ring size.

"Did you want to have a big wedding?" I asked her.

"No. I really don't want to have to get up in front of a bunch of people that I don't know, and embarrass myself trying to walk in a big poofy dress that isn't me, and getting hurt, or hurting someone else, by wearing a pair heels that I should never even consider putting on. I've always wanted small and intimate. Why?"

"I was thinking of the beach, as soon as possible, like in the next couple of weeks."

"That soon? Wow. We have a lot to do to make that happen then, because that sounds perfect to me."

I pulled her to me and kissed her again before grabbing a notebook and we started putting together ideas. We were going to look into the beach wedding thing here first. If we couldn't do it then we'd head down to First Beach in La Push. Her dad would definitely be able to get us permission to have it there.

What really stood out to both of us was how we both had the same ideas of what we wanted our wedding to be like. We talked until late in the night and we both were too exhausted to continue on. It was the first time that Bella and I had spent the night together. We were both too tired to do anything but hold each other until we both fell asleep.

I woke the next morning before she did and laid there next to her playing with her ring. I knew that there was a lot more work to be done today. I didn't care what hoops I had to jump through, I just wanted Bella as my wife as soon as possible.

A/N:

Happy Saturday. Ok, I was going over my plans for this story and have decided that I should have it completed around chapter 21, maybe 22. I just wanted to warn you that we are coming to the end.

I also wanted to remind you that I donated a one-shot to no kid hungry. Here is a teaser (There is another teaser attached to the last LL update):

I stood before that Stupid judge. Does he really think that I have time for this community service thing? There was no way that I was going to be road kill on the side of some highway because some jerk thought I was a, what were his words again, oh yeah, A self-entitled, spoiled, little jackass. I ought to have fired my attorney when he told me that it would be better if I pled guilty and took the deal the DA was offering. "There is too much evidence against you Edward." "It would take a miracle to get you off this time, Edward." If he wasn't my cousin I would have fired him and started the process of having him disbarred. But I wouldn't do that to my aunt. I couldn't do that to her. She didn't need to be even more disappointed in me than she already was


	18. Chapter 18

ASL 18

There's No Free Milk Here

I couldn't believe that Grandma Swan was right. She always spouted off, what I considered nonsense, about a cow and free milk and then the first time that I don't sleep with my boyfriend right away and BAM! He wants to marry me. It was completely unreal. We decided that they we were going to go ahead and wait until our wedding night before we did have sex. I was totally blown away by the fact that he even thought of proposing after less than a month of dating. That was three weeks ago and tomorrow we going to going to be married.

The next morning neither of us wanted to drag our butts out of bed. I knew that he needed to tell Tanya that we were getting married. It was important that she be the first one he told. It wouldn't be right at all if she had to hear it from one of Edward's sisters or even Ethan. Since we were both her friends we decided that the right thing was to go together to tell her and then tell his son. Not that a five year old was going to understand much.

Tonight was Edward's night to keep Ethan so we decided to wait until after I was done with work and go together. Since we were both friends with Tanya, we decided that the right thing was to go together to tell her and then we could tell his son. Not that a five year old was going to understand much.

I was quite distracted all day at work and found myself continuously making notes of things that needed to be done or bought. At lunch I found myself staring at the phone trying to get the courage to pick up the phone. She was not going to take this well.

"Hey, Mom. How have you been? How's Phil? By the way I've been dating Edward for the last few weeks and we're now engaged. Can you be here for the wedding in, say, three weeks?" Yeah. That was going to go over real well. Maybe I could just send a text message and then conveniently lose my phone. That could work. I eventually had to return to work without calling my mother. I'd just have to do it later tonight.

I picked Edward up at the bar, as usual, and we drove over to Tanya's house to pick up Ethan for the night. I had been driving him over or Tanya would drop Ethan off since Angela started using Edward's car. She tried to voice the opinion that she felt that she was inconveniencing everyone but we shut her down on that immediately. I didn't mind driving Edward, it gave us more time together and Tanya would usually drop him off and then head out on a date with Felix. So no inconvenience there either.

We found Tanya, Felix, and Ethan outside playing catch in the front yard. Felix asked Ethan to help him show us the fish in the new Koi pond they had installed in the back yard. Ethan grabbed our hands and insisted that we go with him. I moved to follow him but Edward just ushered him on, "I'm be back there in a minute, buddy, I just need to talk to Mama about something first."

"Ok, daddy." Then he literally dragged me into the back yard. He was running so fast that I could barely keep up with him. In fact, I did trip a couple of times causing Ethan to roll his eyes at me and Felix to laugh at me. Felix handed a little bucket of fish food to Ethan set him off throwing these little pellets into the water.

"Whatever's up must be big," he said once Ethan was completely oblivious to us, so I flashed Felix my ring. "Oh my God! Congratulations!" That was all we said on the subject.

Edward and Tanya came around the house a few minutes later, both of them smiling, "Ethan, go get your bag, you're going to go spend the night with Daddy." No one had to tell him twice. He was gone into the house in a flash. I was taking the day off work as well so that we could get things started if we were going to pull this off in three short weeks.

Edward and Felix followed Ethan into the house to make sure that he packed more than just his toys. He's tried that more than once. Once they were safely in the house Tanya demanded to see the ring. It was a little uncomfortable showing her the ring that her ex-husband picked out for me. I wondered if she was comparing it to the ring that he bought her years ago. She 'oohed' over the ring and then grabbed me into a hug telling me that she was happy for us. With a wink, she linked her arm around mine as we started for the front of the house, "at least he's marrying someone that I know I can trust with my son. I was terrified that one girl he was seeing was going to come back." we both shuddered at that, "I like the two of you together."

We walked over to the car and waited for Ethan and Edward to be ready to go. Tanya asked me about the wedding plans. Edward had already told her that it was going to be in three weeks. She told me that if there was anything she could do to help to let her know. This is why everyone loved Tanya. She could have been angry and nasty about me marrying Edward, but she wasn't. She was always the picture of grace and class.

Ethan took the news pretty well until we asked him to be the ring bearer. Edward was trying to explain to him that it was important and he'd a big part of the show.

"You mean like at school? I getta be a toof agin and when I sing'n'dance everyone gonna claps for me!" Of course his mind went to last years school play.

"Uh…no…you dress up real nice in a suit and tie and stand really quietly by me."

He started crying proclaiming that he hated wearing ties. He had to wear one when he went to a function with Felix's family recently. We finally settled him down by telling him we'd think about leaving the tie off. If nothing else just wearing it for the ceremony and pictures then he could take it off.

After dinner Edward and I went to Alice's house for a visit. The second we got in the door Ethan yelled out, "Daddy gave Miss Bella a ring." And then he ran off to play with his cousins leaving us to deal with the aftermath of the bomb he just unknowingly dropped.

"What did he say? Did you…? Are you…?" Alice stammered out as she stood there flabbergasted and in shock. We launched into the whole tale telling them everything. Jasper's eyes got large and round when he told them that the wedding was being held on the beach. He jumped up from his seat on the couch and started grabbed old sketch books of Alice's that she always left lying around. After being sushed for the sixth time we just sat back in silence and let him do his thing. He was halfway through the seventh book when he exclaimed, "Aha!" and then turned the book to face us. It was a sketch of a pretty cream colored sun dress.

"Oh my God! How did you remember that sketch? I didn't."

"I don't know. It just popped in my head when they mentioned the beach."

"Alice it's beautiful and perfect for Bella. Did you ever make it?" Jasper asked.

"No. I don't do wedding dresses. It was weird that I even drew something like that."

"Is that embroidery at the bottom?" I asked taking a closer look at it. I could see Edward trying and failing at his attempts not to look at the sketch any more than he already had.

"Maybe I should go check on the kids," he said as he got up and bolted out of the room.

Alice turned her attention back to me and the sketch, "Yes, it's embroidered with a sea shell design."

"Can you get it done in three weeks?" I asked with a smile as I took a closer look at all the details on the dress. Then I noticed the date on the sketch and realized that she had drawn it just days before Edward's car accident.

**EPOV:**

I never could have imagined that three weeks could have flown by as fast as they did. Today Bella would become my wife. Everything had fallen into place so well. Alice and her small staff worked tirelessly on Bella's dress and matching flower girl dresses. Not to mention a bridesmaid dress for Angela.

Ethan was thrilled with the suggestion that Alice made that instead of me and Emmett and Ethan being overdressed in suits, we wear just khakis and white button downs that were open at the collars. I knew from the glimpse of the sketch I'd seen of Bella's dress that it was not a traditional wedding dress at all. It was, well, plain isn't the right word for it. That sounds like I am insulting the dress. Subdued? Was that it?

I was standing in the kitchen of my apartment, drinking a cup of coffee, and looking at all of the boxes that were littering the place. We had decided that Bella would move in with me and give her apartment over to Angela. We had been bringing things over little by little.

I looked at the clock and realized that I was going to have to get Ethan up soon if I was going to get him over to Mom and Dad's on time to get ready. The ceremony was at noon. Charlie and Sue were staying with Emmett and Rose because Sue was helping Emmett, who insisted that we allow him to do all of the cooking. Except for the wedding cake, we ordered that from a bakery. By his own admission, he was not a cake decorator. Bella was a little concerned that Charlie might end up attempting to kill Emmett, given their past, but they both assured her that they could survive in the same house without resorting to murder.

I finished my cup of coffee and was just rinsing the cup out in the sink when I heard Ethan's bedroom door open and close. I heard him padding through the hallway and kick into one of the boxes in the living room and I ran to tend to him. I found him sitting on the floor, holding his foot and howling in pain as rocked back and forth. One look at it was I knew that he had just stubbed it and would be fine. He was often very cranky when he just woke up. I moved him to the couch and turned on the TV. Ten minutes later the sore toe was ancient history.

A few hours later, I was standing on the beach with my sister fussing over me. She'd only been here for about five minutes, having just left Bella to came and make sure the guys were dressed right. "Tuck your shirt in." "No, now untuck it." And then it would start again. She just couldn't make up her mind which way would look best in the pictures. Mom finally came over and ended my sister's struggle by declaring that 'untucked' would be better since we were all going barefoot per Alice's insistence. From the research that she did, most people went barefoot for beach weddings. That was fine with me. It was yet another fight with Ethan that I could avoid. And I wouldn't have to worry about Bella hurting herself by trying to walk through the sand in a pair of heels.

We had originally wanted all of the kids to be in the wedding but finally decided that Ethan would be the ring bearer, Kara the Flower girl, and Maria was a junior bridesmaid. It was her job to walk with Ethan and Kara and make sure that they made it up the aisle without getting distracted along the way. I think that Jasper offered her cash to do it.

Everything was under control so I wandered off down the beach to the water and started dipping my toes in the water, careful not to get my pants wet.

"It's a beautiful day for a beach wedding. You guys got very lucky."

I turned to face Tanya and smiled, "We did. Thanks for helping us get this together."

"It's no problem. I had fun. Although my sister thinks I am absolutely insane. She never was able to understand how we could divorce and still be friends."

"It's not that we don't care about each other, we just aren't…"

"Yeah." She sighed, "I am really happy for the two of you, Edward."

"So, when are you and Felix going to do this?"

She laughed, "I don't know, maybe soon. We were talking about it a bit the other night. I was going to…," She took a deep breath;" I was going to wait to tell you tell you this but…I'm pregnant."

"Oh my God! Really?" She nodded. "Congratulations! I am so happy for the two of you! I'm surprised that Ethan hasn't announced it to the world." I grabbed her into a big hug.

"We haven't told him yet. Actually, we haven't told anyone yet. We didn't want to overshadow your wedding or anything." It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her why we never had another baby after Ethan but I never got the chance. Mom yelled out to us that Bella was on her way and we needed to be in place when she got there. Tanya kissed me on the cheek and whispered, "Be happy," before running off to join Felix who was keeping the kids entertained.

AlicePOV:

I couldn't believe that Edward and Bella were getting married. It was so fast. They had only been dating a few weeks. They were just so sure about it that no one questioned the decision to have the wedding so quickly. I was honored when Bella asked me to help her organize everything. I thought it was enough that she wanted to wear the dress that I designed.

Everyone was so thrilled about the upcoming wedding that it you could literally feel the excitement in the air. It had been years since our family was this excited. Everyone wanted to pitch in, in any way that they could, to put a personal touch on the wedding. Emmett and Sue were cooking. Tanya and I were sewing dresses and shopping for the clothes for the groom and his attendants. Rose and Felix were taking the kids a lot in an attempt to keep them out of the way while the adults prepared for the wedding. Mom and Dad were taking care of the reception since it was being held in their backyard. Bella wanted to go simple and do burgers and hotdogs. We were all a bit taken aback by that but we never said a word to her. It was her day and what she wanted she should get, whether it was hot dogs or whatever. But that didn't mean that Emmett wasn't going to go gourmet on those burgers and dogs. I knew that he was.

Bella had decided on coral and cream for her colors. I thought it was perfect for a beach wedding. The making of her dress wasn't too difficult, but the hand embroidery was extremely time consuming for me. I worked on it during the day at the shop while I had the girls that worked for me working on the bridesmaid dresses. We only had to make three of them. Luckily we all knew Maria and Kara's measurements by heart and Angela was easy to fit.

Bella and I decided to do the bridesmaids dresses in coral and have them where cream colored flowers in their hair and carry cream colored peonies. Bella's dress was cream colored and she was going to be carrying a bouquet of coral lilies and had a hair piece made of her coral lilies and cream peonies stuck in the bun we were putting her hair in. I had a friend that would come do hair and makeup for me anytime that I wanted to put my collections in a local show. She graciously agreed to do everyone's hair and makeup for the wedding.

It was one less thing for us to worry about and meant that I could leave to be at the ceremony site making sure that everything had been set up exactly the way that Bella and Edward had wanted it. There were only going to be around a hundred people in attendance so we rented the chairs and then Bella found a place that rented chair covering in cream with Coral accents.

Since the bridal party had to get ready at Bella's apartment, which was closer to where we were holding the ceremony than anyone else house, we had to make some sort of arrangement to coordinate when the bridal party should start making their way to the beach. Neither Edward nor Bella wanted anything left to chance on that. They did not want for Bella to show up and get out of the car before everyone else was in place.

Emmett and Sue were the last to make it here besides the bridal party. They were doing all the cooking and had some last minute things to get done today. As soon as they arrived, I texted Charlie to tell him that it was time for them to come along.

Charlie texted me back once they had passed a specific spot along the route. At that point, I had Edward and Emmett make their way up the aisle to where the preacher was waiting. By the time that our parents and Bella's mother were up the aisle the first limo was pulling up. I sent Angela on up the aisle while I arranged the children to go behind her. I put Ethan and Kara side by side with Maria walking directly behind them. She was thrilled to be in the wedding even if it meant being in charge of getting two five year olds up the aisle with everyone still in one piece.

Even after all of our practicing, Kara got really wild with her flower petals. Maria had to stop each kid from running up the aisle, twice. Kara stopped and yelled for Grandpa Carlisle to look at her pretty new dress and even did a spin before Maria could catch her.

Bella and Charlie arrived with impeccable timing. I fussed with Bella's dress a little more before I was satisfied that she was ready to go. I went over to the music system that we had set up and switched the song from Pachabel to the Wedding March. Then Bella made her way down the aisle to marry my brother.

EPOV:

She was absolutely breathtaking. When she appeared from the parking lot and came towards me I felt like the luckiest man alive that she was marrying me. It was like everything started moving in slow motion and it felt like it was taking forever for her to get to me.

I don't think that I took a breath from the time that she appeared at the end of the aisle until her hand was safely in mine. I don't think that either of us looked anywhere but into each others eyes during the entire ceremony.

I would have thought that it would have taken a lot longer than it did to exchange our vows, especially given how long the rehearsal took last night. Before I realized what was happening, I heard the preacher telling me to kiss my bride. MY bride. MY wife. Bella was my wife. He didn't have to tell me twice. I grabbed Bella and kissed her soundly amidst a lot of cat calls and whistles. We made our way back down the aisle, but this time together with my hand gripping hers as one. And 'one' was how we were going to be for the rest of our lives.

A/N:

This is unbeta'd at the moment. The wonderful and amazing Sweetpea123 had a busy week and I also threw her the one-shot for No Kid Hungry which she got back to me. But I didn't want to wait to post this so when she gets me the fixed copy I will switch them out. I don't know if that will kick out another alert or not. The next chapter is done and with Sweetpea now, as well. And I have a good start on 20. I'm looking at 22 chapters in total here.

I joined a fitness webgroup with another fanfic author, it's called myfitnesspal . com if you interested in joining me there I'm branson101. I've lost 2lbs in a two weeks just by logged my food and exercise and then posting it where everyone can see. It helps to keep you on path if everyone can see you cheat! Plus you have the support of all of your friends.

Have a safe holiday weekend!


	19. Chapter 19

ASL 19

Time Stamps

**BPOV:**

It was hard to believe sometimes that Edward and I had been married for a year and a half already. It seemed like just yesterday we were making out in the back of the limo while making our way from the ceremony to the reception. The reception I may not remember in the greatest detail, but our wedding night… I remember every second of our wedding night.

_ We spent the night in a suite at The Four Season's hotel. It was beautiful and luxurious. Edward had a bottle of champagne chilling and waiting in the room when we got there. It had already been a long day for both of us, but there was a vast amount of excitement and expectation in the air. _

_ I went into the large bathroom to change. I was still wearing the wonderful dress that Alice had made for me. She was amazing for all the help she gave me planning the wedding. She did a lot of it for me, but at the same time, did nothing without my approval. The wedding was perfect, everything that I had ever wanted or dreamed of for my wedding day. Including going barefoot, that was Alice's suggestion and one that I gladly jumped on._

_ I slipped off the dress, folded it nicely, and placed it on the counter while I ran a quick bath. I felt like I had sand everywhere. I pulled the flowers from my hair as I let my hair out of the bun and ran a brush through it._

_ I took about a half hour in the bathroom cleaning up and relaxing. I slipped on the complimentary robe and walked back out to the main room, Edward had a movie on the TV and a tray of crackers, cheese, and fruit set out for us while he lounged on the bed. He kissed me and excused himself to take a quick bath. _

_ I had changed into my new negligee that I had gone shopping for with Angela. I was really glad that I had her around to help me because the only other women in my life were Edward's mother, sisters, and ex-wife. Yeah, that was so not happening. _

_ Angela suggested that I go with cream since that was the color of my wedding dress. I really didn't see the reasoning behind that but I found a cream one made of satin and lace that I absolutely loved, so I got it. _

_ I crawled onto the bed to wait for Edward, who was back out of the bathroom a lot quicker than I was. He joined me on the bed and leaned over to kiss me. It was still hard to wrap my head around the fact that he was my husband now. _

_ As Edward shifted so that he was lying on top of me, I threaded my hand through his hair. I moaned and arched my back when he grabbed my breast with his hand. I was by no means a virgin, but it had been so long since I had been with a man I could barely stand it anymore. I wrapped my leg around his and maneuvered us so that I had flipped us over and I was on top of him._

_ He ran his hands up and down my thighs as I straddled him. I reached down and pulled off my nightgown, leaving me naked and causing Edward to groan. He reached for my breasts again as I leaned down to kiss him. I shifted, grabbing the ends of the towel that was wrapped around his waist and pulled it open leaving him naked under me. _

_ I wrapped my hand around him, eliciting a "FUCK" out of him. He grabbed my face and started kissing me harder and then he moved his head to kiss my neck. He moved one of his hands to my ass and pushed me more into his other hand that was now between us and driving me crazy with the way that he was rubbing me in just the right way. It wasn't long before we were both ready and I lifted a little and lowered myself on him. _

_ It had been so long for both of us that neither of us lasted that long that first time. It was a little awkward as we both got to know what the other enjoyed. By the time that we were too exhausted to go anymore, we had made love two more times. It still wasn't perfect but it was more amazing than anything else that I had ever felt._

Ethan tearing through the apartment got my attention and I yelled for him to stop running. I finished wrapping our gifts and put them on the table by the door so we wouldn't forget them. Which, given my state of mind lately, was entirely possible. Ethan was dressed and happily watching cartoons so I went to the bedroom to get ready to go.

I heard the shower turn off while I was still standing in front of the closet trying to find something to wear. "Everything in here makes me look like a whale," I whined as I heard Edward come out of our bathroom.

"You do not look like a whale. You're very beautiful and very pregnant with my babies," he said as he kissed me. Yes. That was babies in the plural sense, as in two babies at one time. Rose had to talk me down from the ledge after we heard the two heart beats. She said that if she and Emmett could survive twin daughters then Edward and I would be just fine. I still wasn't so sure.

I knew we were going to be expected to announce the sex of the babies today. Everyone knew that we'd had picked up Ethan last night especially to take him with us to the ultrasound appointment. Normally Edward or I would pick him up on Monday's afterschool and keep him until it was time for school on Thursday mornings. We very rarely had him with us on the weekend due to Edward's hours at the bar. He worked most of the night, getting home right before dawn, and then would sleep most of the day.

I was excited to discover that I was pregnant a couple months after our anniversary. We hadn't really discussed trying but we both were clear that we wanted to have kids together. Edward was absolutely thrilled when I told him.

_**…**__Pregnant! I was going to have a baby. More importantly, I was going to have Edward's baby. I looked back down at the little white stick in my hand and got really excited. It was a good thing that I was alone in the apartment because I was squealing and laughing and running around in my pajamas doing a happy dance. I couldn't wait for Edward to get home from work so that I could tell him. _

_ While I waited up for him to get home from the bar, I started making lists of questions that I wanted to ask the doctor. I would have to remember to call and make an appointment first thing in the morning._

_ Unfortunately, I was in the bathroom when he came home and in the three minutes it took me to get back out to the bedroom he had passed out. He literally fell onto the bed fully clothed and was snoring away. So I covered him with a blanket and crawled into bed myself. _

_ When I woke up again, it was early afternoon and Edward was not in bed. I padded out into the living room to find him lying on the sofa watching a rugby game. "You've totally corrupted me, babe," he commented without even turning to look at me. "You want some pizza?" he said, pointing out the open box on the coffee table. The sight of the greasy pepperoni set off my stomach and sent me running out of the room. I ran back to the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, put my head between my knees, and took some deep breaths. _

_ I hadn't actually thrown up once yet, but the smells and even the sight of some foods would make me quite nauseous. Edward was right behind me with a look of concern on his face and sat down next to me and started rubbing my back._

_ "I waited up for you to get home last night."_

_ "Really? I was so wiped out. It was a packed house all night. I literally had to kick every one out at closing time." I nodded, knowing that it was a good thing to have a night like that. They happened, but not often enough. _

_ "Big game or something?"_

_ "Yeah, some big international soccer match that ran late. I'm sorry I didn't see you. Was there a reason you stayed up? You're usually asleep long before I get home and lately you've been so tired, you've been sleeping later than me on your days off."_

_ "There's a reason for that actually. I'm pregnant."_

_ "Really? You're sure?" I nodded. "When did you find out?"_

_ "I took a home test last night but all the signs are there." _

_ He grabbed me and kissed me before looking me straight in the eyes, "I couldn't be happier about this. I love you so much."_

…

I finally grabbed maternity jeans that Rose had loaned me and one of Edward's sweatshirts from the closet and threw them on. By the time I was done with my hair I was too frustrated and hot to deal with makeup so I just went without. I didn't care and neither would anyone else there.

Today was Tanya and Felix's daughter, Madison's, first birthday and there was going to be a big party at their house. Knowing Felix and his friends, this party was going to be epic. I had heard something about bouncy castles and petting zoos being mentioned in passing.

I went back out to the living room to find Edward and Ethan talking about baby names. "Hey! Shouldn't I be involved in this conversation?"

**EPOV:**

I smiled at my wife with her little baby bump as she sat down on the other side of Ethan and started playing with his hair. He normally wouldn't allow that but he was a little afraid of saying the wrong thing. One day, when I took him home when Tanya was getting to the end of her pregnancy, she greeted him at the door by saying that she missed her baby. He told her that he wasn't a baby anymore, causing her to burst into tears. I guess it took over an hour for Felix to get her to calm down. The poor kid learned the hard way to watch what he says to a pregnant woman.

"We were just throwing some ideas out there." She smiled and closed her eyes, letting her head rest against the back of the couch. She was so tired all the time. I didn't know if that was because of the extra baby or what but it had me so concerned for awhile that I brought it up to her doctor. She said that it was normal with any pregnancy but would be more pronounced since Bella was carrying twins.

"Is Angela bringing Mia to the party?" I asked Bella.

"I think so. I think that Seth is coming with them." After what that ass Ben did to Angela she was afraid to get out there and trust a guy again. Even though she told Bella that she liked Seth, she wouldn't even entertain the idea of dating again. I knew that they had met at our wedding and had become friends, but he had wanted more and she refused. The best part was that he absolutely adored Mia. He watched her more often for Angela than the rest of us did.

"Have you thought about what you want to do for your birthday?" Bella asked Ethan. One thing that Tanya and I agreed on, in respect to Ethan, was that he should only have one birthday party. His siblings would only have one and it would be quite unfair for him to get two just because we were divorced. It wasn't like we couldn't be in the same room with each or anything. But his birthday was in a little over a month and we had to start planning for it.

"I want to go to Chuck E. Cheese!" He always wanted to go to there. I sighed, knowing that I was going to get stuck there for a whole afternoon since there was no good reason to tell him no.

"Ok. We'll talk to your mom about it soon. But now, we have to get going."

"I don't really have to get up right now, do I?" Bella groaned.

"If you don't feel up to going, no one is going to be upset if you stay home and rest."

"Everyone will be upset. They are expecting an announcement from us and we have to do it together. If we don't tell everyone today there will be a lynch mob, headed by your ex-wife. And if you tell everyone what we're having without me then _I_ will be upset and will lead a one woman lynch mob against you!"

I nodded and helped her off the couch. There was no way that I was going to make it through the next four months with my sanity intact.

When we arrived at the party my parents were already there and helping out. I made Bella sit on the couch and rest while Ethan and I went to find his mother. By the time I got back to the living room my sisters were there, hounding Bella to get information out of her. I was about to warn them to back off, that they were pushing too much, but Bella blew up and told them to "shut the fuck up and leave her alone for five fucking minutes." My mother burst out in laughter. I was just glad that there were no children in the room for her outburst.

I couldn't remember one minute of Tanya being pregnant with Ethan and it was something that I truly hated. I could even remember the first three years of his life without watching videos. Everyone told me that in the long run it wasn't going to be a huge deal, that it is a small amount of time considering the years of memories I will have with him. That was bullshit in my opinion. It was all the firsts of his that I wanted… first hand memories of what I had lost and would never be able to get back. I had to wonder if he'd ever hold it against me when he was old enough to understand that I forgot him.

It was because of that that I was cherishing every second of Bella's pregnancy. Every food craving and every mood swing was everything to me. I didn't care if she called me away from the bar because she wanted something. It only happened twice and both times it had been a nacho platter that Emmett made, not to serve at the bar but at home. I gladly made sure that he got everything that he needed to make it and then ran it the few blocks to our apartment.

Three hours later the party was finally over and it was just the family left and we sat down to relax and talk for a while. They were still chomping at the bit for us to tell them the sex of the babies. As soon as we told them, Emmett and I had to leave for work. It was Saturday night and we were needed to help with the heavy crowds. It was getting close to the playoff for the MLB, and Seattle had a great chance to make it all the way and that had been really good for business. Whenever the home teams, didn't matter which sport, hit a winning streak business boomed. The more the team would win, the happier the fans were and were inclined to celebrate by drinking and eating more. Emmett and I were joking the other day about finding a way to ensure that the Seahawks made it the Super bowl too so we could have our best year yet.

Bella was fast asleep by the time that I dragged my butt into our apartment after closing the bar. I looked around and wondered if we shouldn't look for a house to buy in the suburbs. It wasn't like we couldn't afford it, and it would be nice to have a yard for the kids to play in. Bella and I had discussed it before and she was against the idea. Bella brought up the fact that having a yard also meant having a lawn that needed to be mowed all the time, and my job was not conducive for me be available to mow during acceptable hours. I worked from afternoon to early morning and slept most of the time that I was home. Unless Bella was home, then I stayed awake to spend time playing with her.

I didn't particularly want to commute every morning either. Emmett hated his drive home and often stayed at the bar or on our couch if the roads got too bad or if he was too tired to drive, but that was a rare occurrence. You get used to the strange hours after a while.

A few days after Maddy's birthday party, Tanya showed up at the bar and asked if we could talk in private. Once we were in my office she walked over to the sofa and sat in silence. I knew my ex-wife well enough to know that whatever she had to say to me was big. It wasn't like her to show up at the bar for a chat. Maybe she and Felix were finally getting married.

"You want a beer?" I asked her, trying to give her time to get her thoughts together.

"No. Thank you though,. I…uh…I went to the doctor last week and they found a lump." 

I fell into the chair behind my desk. We sat there for a few minutes while it all set in for me, "Well, fuck." I finally said rubbing my face with my hands.

"Yeah" 

"What's the plan? How are they going to treat it?"

"A double mastectomy and then chemo."

"Wow. That's aggressive. What about Ethan?"

"That's why I'm here. That's a decision that we need to make together. I will need to rest a lot and I know Bella is really pregnant and all, but I thought he could stay with you? Maddy, too? If it's too much for Bella, I was thinking that your Mom might help."

"When do you go in for the surgery?"

"Tomorrow. I just found out this afternoon. They said it's imperative that we move fast on this."

"Bring them over tonight. I'll call Bella and tell her what's going on."

"Thank you, Edward. You really are an amazing man. I don't know how to repay you for taking Maddy too."

"Just concentrate on kicking this cancer's ass." I hugged her and watched her leave before telling Jane that I had to head home for the night. This was not something that I really wanted to tell Bella over the phone. I knew that Bella would be fine with both kids staying with us, and our family would do whatever needed to be done to help Tanya cope and heal. It didn't matter that we were divorced and had moved on, she was the mother of my son and would always be a part of my family.

A/N:

Happy Saturday! I just got home from taking my son and niece to the zoo and I am pooped. There are two more regular chapters of this and then an epilogue. I am already working on a one-shot and another full chapter story.

Thank you to Sweetpea123 who does amazing work cleaning this up for me. Reviews will get teaser.


	20. Chapter 20

ASL Chapter 20

Real life is messy and painful

BPOV:

The next couple of months were really difficult on the whole family. I wouldn't say that I was happy to take in Maddie, solely because of the circumstances, but I did not mind in the least to help out. I had want to be there to help Tanya more, but everyone insisted that I limit my in-person interactions with her. Besides, I normally had Maddie and Ethan because Tanya was usually tired, weak, and nauseous from the chemo.

Ethan was old enough that he understood that his Mommy was sick and he had to be careful around her. He was good about making sure that he was as germ free as possible before going to see her. Unfortunately, it wasn't often that she was up to the kids coming to visit. Two months of chemo had taken their toll on her physically. She had lost all of her hair, and where she was already skinny she had lost a lot more weight from not being able to keep food down most days. Felix would try to stop by when he could but he was so busy taking care of Tanya to make it over everyday.

Ethan was a great helper through it all. One night when Edward was at work he told me that the whole situation reminded him of the time right after Edward had been in the car accident. Then, a lot had been kept from him due to his age. This time he outright asked Edward not to keep anything from him to 'protect him'. He felt that he deserved to know the truth about what was going on. He had been through so much and was so mature for a seven year old. So Edward and Tanya both agreed to be completely honest with him, including the days that we had news that was hard for us to accept.

As my pregnancy progressed it was harder for me to help out. It was getting harder for me to move, period. Esme or Heidi, Jane's girlfriend, would come to help me out with the kids when he had to be at the bar. Jane was going to be in charge of the bar when I had the twins, and Edward was taking time off for a paternity leave. Heidi and Esme had become the best of friends. While together the three of us planned out the nursery, the two of them did all the actual work for me, shopping and setting things up. They were an absolute God-send.

Maddie was a complete angel to take care of. She was such a calm and quiet baby. She rarely fussed about anything. She and I had a routine down, after returning from taking Ethan to school I would do a little minor housework, like dishes, while she played near me. Then after lunch we'd take a little nap until it was time to pick Ethan up from school. I wasn't allowed to do anything too strenuous.

Tonight Edward had taken the kids over to Tanya's for the night before he went to work. It was one of those rare nights that she felt good and wanted her children around her. Edward called Alice and Rose and they had arrived after they were done with work, with Chinese food and a case filled with enough nail polish to give the whole of the United States Armed Forces manicures and pedicures. I loved these nights.

Alice went for the TV to put in a movie for us to watch while we ate and pampered ourselves. "What are you putting in?" Rose demanded, "I don't want Edward jumping down our throats again if he comes home to find her sobbing again over some sappy movie we insisted on watching."

"Relax. It's just Down Periscope. There is nothing remotely sad in it. In my defense though, I had no idea she'd get that upset over Pirates of the Caribbean."

"Emmett told me that Edward told him that she cried all night because that monkey remained cursed at the end."

"Hey! I'm right here you know."

"We know, but at least we're talking about you behind your back in front of you, so you know how bad we are making fun of you and your crazy hormones."

"The only reason that I am letting you get away with that statement, Rose, is because you did the twin thing yourself."

I had a great night with the girls. Rose and Alice did my toes for me since I couldn't reach them anymore. Being seven months pregnant with twins had a way of making you feel like you are bigger than life.

I had fallen asleep long before Edward was due to get home from work. That was hardly unusual these days. I arranged my days around the kids and their schedules. That meant getting up early to get Ethan to school on time. This morning, however, that was Tanya and Felix's job. Today, I had plans to sleep in and cuddle with my husband for as long as possible. I had a doctor's appointment in the afternoon that I had scheduled around Edward's work schedule. Today was his day off and I wasn't going to waste a second of it.

EPOV: 

I felt Bella slip out of bed. It was rare that we got mornings alone. It was rare that we got much time alone these days. I wanted to spend the morning in bed with her. I sighed and rolled over and prepared to get up and go find her when I felt her climb back into the bed. I reached out and pulled her closer to me. I had to twist and reach more than normal to be able to kiss her good morning. I was about to reach my hands up her night gown when her stomach started to growl just as the babies started to kick. I laughed and sat up. Once I was standing, I kissed her again and told her to stay put while I went to make the three of them something to eat.

I am still not the best of cooks but I threw together some bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast for the both of us. Bella is the one that normally does the cooking around here. She's no Emmett, but she's good. After we were done eating, Bella went to take a shower while I took the dishes to the kitchen and cleaned up my mess in her kitchen before she came out here, found it, and got angry with me. I tried to avoid that as much as possible when she wasn't pregnant. As much as I knew that she loved staying with the kids, I knew that there was a big part of her that missed her job and hated being stuck in the apartment all the time. She kind of got railroaded into taking time off work to stay home with the kids. She couldn't exactly say no and not look like a total bitch.

The doctor's visit was your typical, routine stuff. They measured her stomach and we heard the heat beats, which to me came second as my favorite part of these appointments. The only thing better was the ultrasound. We weren't scheduled to have another one of those until next month's appointment. I became concerned when they told Bella that they wanted to start seeing her weekly from this point on. The doctor said that she was always overcautious with her mothers of multiples in their last couple of months. It was easy for a complication to arise suddenly and she wanted to be able to catch anything right away.

With one last reminder to Bella that she wanted her off her feet more, the doctor left the exam room and we were free to go. I was hungry so I knew that Bella had to be too, so I suggested an early dinner at our favorite Italian place.

"Edward, I think we need to start thinking about buying a house. The apartment is only three bedrooms and eventually the twins are going to need to be in separate rooms, and I don't think it would be fair to expect Ethan to share. He needs a space with us that is just his." I wanted to gripe and groan about it but she was right. All three kids deserved their own space and the apartment just wasn't going to cut it forever. "I don't mean that we have to move right away or anything. But I think we should start considering where we want to move to, what we can afford…"

"I know you're right. I've thought about it myself. I've just gotten really spoiled being able to walk to work everyday." 

"I know. We'll also have to get a second car again, too." I had given up my old car to Angela and never bothered to replace it. I hadn't had a need to. Bella had one and that was all that we needed.

"We also have to get you a new car. One that is big enough for all the kids." She grimaced. I knew that she didn't like the idea of driving a minivan, but we were going to need something that big. "Maybe we could go window shopping for cars after we eat."

"How about we go home and spend the rest of the night in bed? You heard the doctor say that I wasn't to be on my feet too much." She smirked, thinking that she had me there and she had won. I was not going to allow her to distract me on this. We were running out of time to replace her little sedan.

"I also heard her tell you that some exercise was good for you and walking around a dealership counts as exercise. We can lie about in bed later. Just one, maybe two dealerships, and that's it for the night." She pouted, knowing that she had lost the battle for tonight.

She griped and complained all the way to the dealership after dinner. I promised that we would stop for an ice cream cone after we were done and that didn't even appease her. Then we got to the Volvo dealership and Bella being Bella fell in love with a car immediately, but wasn't about to cave in and admit defeat. She was co cute about it, too. I knew the second that she had noticed the car. She didn't approach it right away, but pretended to be bored or look at the cars around while sneaking glances at it, trying to check out the inside of the car.

I finally walked up to the car in question, the XC90, and looked at the sticker. It was a smart choice for us and I believed it to be in our budget. We weren't there for long before a salesman approached us. It was a safe vehicle and big enough for three car seats, a seven year old, and two adults. Bella really fell in love with it when she test drove it. We told the guy that we wanted to think on it overnight and we'd let him know in the morning. I knew that if Bella really wanted that car, I would go back and buy it in a heartbeat. But I also wanted a chance to discuss it without a salesman looking over our shoulders influencing us. Besides, it was getting late and Bella and I had plans to lie around naked in bed tonight.

TanyaPOV:

It wasn't fair. I've said that a lot over the last few years. You would think that I had my fair share of tragedy after my marriage fell apart when my husband forgot who I was. But NO. I have to find lumps in my breasts in a routine exam.

I was not prepared for how hard this fight was going to be. I didn't realize how sick and tired the medicine would make me. I had to send my children to my ex-husband's new wife to take care of, even though Maddie wasn't even his child. It's not that I don't like and trust Bella, but that would be a hard pill for any woman to swallow.

My first inclination after the biopsy came back with the result that it was malignant cancer was to stick my head in the sand and refuse to acknowledge it. But Felix convinced me to listen to the doctor's recommendations and to have the double mastectomy and start the chemo treatments immediately.

That was the night that I went to see Edward at his bar and asked him for help. It wasn't easy, by any means, and I stood outside the bar for a half an hour before I finally worked up the courage to walk in and face him. I knew that they wouldn't refuse to help me. Edward loved his son but I did worry that sending two children, one being only one year's old, was going to overwhelm them. Bella was amazing with the children, but she was pregnant with twins.

It's not like I was able to actually take care of myself once the chemo started to take effect. I was so tired and tired of puking up everything that I attempted to eat. There were many days that I couldn't even gather the strength to get out of bed. When I could, I would usually end up spending the day lying on the couch drifting in and out of sleep. I tried to keep up with the house, but it was proving impossible to do.

Bella's friend from Florida, Angela, turned out to be an absolute Godsend. She knew exactly what I was going through from working with children that were fighting cancer. That was one thing that she corrected with me right away. We, patients that is, were not suffering from cancer, we were fighting it. She likened it be us being warriors in an epic battle for our lives. I thought that she was crazy at the beginning, but after just a couple weeks I started to see what she was talking about. There was this internal and external struggle for domination of my mind and body. There were times that I was so tired that I just wanted to give up, and Angela would yell at me not to let the cancer win that battle because that is what it wanted. Then she'd shove pictures of my babies in my face and I would take strength from my love for them to keep fighting.

I hated when I had to call Bella and tell her not to bring the kids over because I wasn't up to a visit that day. Maddie wouldn't know better, but Ethan did. I hated when he would get sad about me being sick. He was getting a pretty screwed up childhood on a whole, and that made me feel like a crappy mother, they both deserved so much better than they were getting from me.

Today, though, I felt good. I had finished the chemo a few days ago and I was well enough to have my babies home with me. I was thrilled to be sitting at the dinner table, just the four of us. It amazed me that tacos were still Ethan's favorite meal. He was talking a mile a minute about school and his upcoming birthday. I was glad that I was feeling better and was going to be able to take care of planning it for him. That was important to me. That was my priority tonight, Ethan's party. I had an appointment with my oncologist in a few days to find out if the chemo worked. I didn't think that I really needed to go. I knew what they were going tell me. It didn't work and I was going to have to go through it again. I'd worry about that later though. Tonight we were a happy family spending the evening together and I needed it to be a happy memory for me, for Ethan, for Felix.

"Your dad said that you want to go to Chuck E. Cheese for your birthday. Anything special you want to do?" And with that he was off, going on and on about whom he wanted to invite. There was a boy in his dad's apartment building that he played with when he was there, and he wanted to make sure that I knew to invite him. I promised that I would get his address from Bella.

Ethan stated that he wanted to have a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I even agreed to give him the chocolate ice cream to go with it. I asked if there was a theme that he wanted for the party, like Avengers or something like that, but he wasn't sure what he wanted. I told him that he had a day or two to think about it, but I would need to know soon.

As soon as dinner was done, Felix started cleaning the kitchen while I took the kids to the bathroom for baths and to get ready for bed. I put Maddie down first and then I went to Ethan's room, where I found him playing with his Legos on his bedroom floor. As soon as he saw me standing in his doorway he ran for his book shelf and grabbed The Phantom Tollbooth, a book that he and I had been reading. I'd told him that he could take it to his Dad's, that he and Bella would love to read it to him, but he refused. He and I had picked that book out together and he wanted to read it together. We cuddled on his bed and got a few chapters read before he was really starting to doze off. I kissed him on the forehead and started to leave the room. I was just turning off the light when he mumbled, "I love you mama."

Felix was already in bed waiting with my nightly pills and a glass of water. I took them and curled up into his arms. A part of me wished that we had gotten married, we had kept putting it off for a better time and now we were running out of time.

A/N:

There is one more regular chapter and then an epilogue left. I wasn't intending to put another TanyaPOV in but she was the only one that would talk to me this week.

Ok. Here is the deal-io. I have Chapter 21 done and it's about to go off to Sweetpea to beta BUT I am going on vacation next Saturday. I will post Chapter 21 on Friday night, since I have to be up at five in the morning for an eight hour drive. (pray for me please). I will be spending an entire week in the Ozark woods just outside, you guessed, Branson, MO. While I will be staying at a resort, the internet connection is spotty at best so I will not be able to reply to reviews. I will come home on the following Saturday and I would love to say that I will finish the epi before I leave or work on it while I am gone but I am going to be too busy parasailing and lounging on Moonshine Beach. Sorry. Well, actually I'm not. I do promise to not make you wait too long for it.

Now to address the whole ffn protest that is going on this weekend. I guess that it is obvious that I am not participating. It is not that I don't sympathize or empathize with the authors that have had their stories pulled, I just don't think that it is going to accomplish anything but punishing the readers by withholding updates from them. Ffn is a huge site that does not monitor when or how often any story updates and has stories archived that have not updated for years. Two days of a handful of people not posting is never going to register with them. That is just my little opinion.

Thank you so much for reading this story. Thank you to Sweetpea123 for betaing this and other things for me. I flove you for all that you do.

Reviews will get teasers.


	21. Chapter 21

.ASL Chapter 21

Affirmation of Life

EPOV:

I was wiping down the bar for what had to be the millionth time tonight. I knew that I was getting on Jane's nerves but I didn't care. I was restless as hell tonight. It was like something was off but I had no idea what it could be. I double checked my liquor order, my supply order, and my calendar. I hadn't forgotten anything. I even called Bella to make sure that I hadn't forgotten to do something at home. I hadn't. I was driving myself crazy.

I tried to clear my head by thinking about other things. Last Sunday had been Ethan's birthday. Just like he wanted, we had his party at Chuck E. Cheese, and then I had a half a bottle of ibuprofen to try to get rid of the headache. I can work in a sports bar five nights a weeks but one afternoon at an arcade full of kids nearly killed me. Ethan got everything that he asked for. At least, I think he did. He asked for a lot of shit, some of it I have no clue what it is. Some of it stumped Bella. I had to laugh we he rolled his eyes at her when she asked what a Loki was. He even got some gift cards to buy more stuff.

Bella, on the other hand, had a great time. Of course, since she's so far along in her pregnancy, all she really did was sit with Tanya and watch everyone's stuff. Tanya was too weak to go chasing the kids around so they left Felix and me in charge of making sure the kids were kept with their pockets full of tokens.

Ok. To be totally honest, it might be possible that Emmett and I got into an air hockey tournament and just kept shoving money at the kids as they came up asking for more tokens. Well, until Rose yelled at Emmett for handing a twenty to a kid that wasn't even part of our group. The little smartass had caught on that we weren't paying attention and scammed us. We were put in 'time out' after that and made to sit at the table. Of course, being the big kids that we are with absolutely no restraint, we ate too much pizza and drank too much soda and made ourselves sick. Our mean wives had no compassion for us, either. Bella shoved a bottle of tums in my hands and made me go to work later that afternoon, with a 'welcome to my world' when I complained about being too nauseous to function.

Tanya. That poor woman was another story in itself. Her first round of chemo had not garnered any positive results so they were going try it again. We were all devastated at the news. She had wanted to wait until after Ethan's birthday, but the doctors said that that wasn't an option. They gave her two weeks and then it started again. This time, Maddie was staying with Mom and Dad. Bella felt bad about not being able to care for her again but she was eight months along now and could go into labor at any time, so it was easier for them to keep her. They also had Ethan tonight. He had begged to go stay with them for the night because he knew that Kara, Aiden, and Maria were there, too, while Alice and Jasper celebrated their anniversary.

I think that Bella was eager to get a night to herself and relish the peace and quiet. When I called her I could hear the tub running. It was good for her to get this time to herself because very shortly we were never going to have quiet time or personal time again.

Emmett got my attention when he came out of the kitchen and plopped down at the bar in front of me and asked for a coke. I never would have thought that I would have ended up so close to anyone that married one of my sisters, but Emmett was the coolest. He was almost as worried about Bella through her pregnancy as he was with Rose when she was pregnant.

I went back to my office and started going through the bills and working on payroll. That was one of the hard parts of my job. There were so many rules and laws that I had to follow, it bordered on ridiculous. By the time that I was done with it, it was after eleven and the kitchen was closed. I wandered back out to the main bar and sat down with some regulars that were watching the end of a game. The game was almost over but they offered me a glass of beer from their pitcher that I declined. It's an unusual move for me. I am more than willing to kick back with my favorite customers and have a drink, but as Bella has been nearing the end of her pregnancy I decided to stop drinking at work. I don't want to have a beer and then get _the _call from her.

All the customers are gone by a quarter til midnight so I closed early. I do it on occasion but not often. I am not worried about customers finding me closed early. The only people that are going to show up at a bar after twelve are the ones that are already drunk off their asses and have already been cut off by at least one other bar.

I am excited that I will be able to get home early and crawl into bed and cuddle with my wife. I sighed out loud at the thought of having Bella in my arms. We couldn't make love though. The doctor cut us off a couple of weeks ago for fear of sending Bella into labor early.

I was still antsy so I left my car at the bar and walked home. I had been driving lately so that I could get home faster if Bella needed me, but I had talked to her not long ago and she was absolutely fine.

Walking the few blocks to our building, I took in deep breaths of the crisp night air. It was only a five minute walk home from the bar, but by the time that I got into the lobby doors I found Bella leaning on the doorman's counter taking the same kind of deep breaths that I had been taking a few minutes ago and clutching her stomach.

"What happened? Are you alright? Why didn't you call me?"

"EDWARD! Calm down. My water broke. I tried to call the bar but no one answered."

"We closed early. Why didn't you try my cell?"

"I did. It went straight to voicemail. I called Emmett's cell and he said that you were walking home. Tommy's the doorman tonight and he offered to go get my car so we'd be ready to go when you managed to show up." I looked down and saw that she had her bags on the floor beside her. It was mere seconds later that Tommy pulled up in front of the building and helped me get Bella into the car. He wished us a safe delivery as I got into the driver's seat and drove us to the hospital.

BPOV:

Why of all nights did my fool husband decide to not only close early but to walk his ass home? Don't get me wrong, I was glad that he got home early and all, but it irritated me that I couldn't reach him when I really needed him. It had happened so suddenly. One minute I was fine and searching for a tub of chocolate ice cream that I had bought the other day, and the next my water broke and I was standing in a puddle. Then I got to freak out over Edward being MIA. I called Emmett's cell phone and he promised to call the family and then made me promise that if Edward didn't show in the next ten minutes to call back and he or Rose would come get me and take me to the hospital. I texted him back while Edward drove us to the hospital that all was well now.

Edward pulled into the parking lot outside the maternity entrance. He tried to pull up to the door and let me out but I told him to just park the damn car and we'd walk in together. There was no way that I was going to walk in there alone, even if it was only for a few minutes. I needed Edward by my side and holding my hand through every second of this.

When he finally quit arguing with me and did what he was told he parked in the closest space. I leaned on him as we walked the short distance from the car to the building. I was already tired and hoped that it wasn't going to be a difficult deliver or even a really long one.

"How far apart are the contractions?" The nurse asked us as we were escorted to a room.

"I have no clue. I've only had one and that was about nine minutes ago." I told him, checking the time on my cell phone. Even though we lived close to the hospital, Edward drove like a crazy man to get us here. Not that I was going to say anything to him. Rose said that Emmett did the same thing when she went into labor. I was just happy to be at the hospital where the doctor and the nice guy that would give me the epidural were waiting.

We entered the room to find another nurse and the resident on duty waiting for me. The nurses helped me change into a hospital gown while Edward took out his phone and realized that it had died. No wonder I couldn't reach him on it. The boob was forever letting the battery die.

"I bought an extra charger and put it in my…Oh fuck me this hurts!" I was having another contraction and it was hurting a hell of a lot more than that first one had. Unfortunately, I was still standing when it hit and my knees started to give out. The nurses jumped to catch me before I hit the floor and got me into bed.

Twenty minutes and an exam by the resident later showed that I was not only dilated to four centimeters but my contractions were now coming every ten minutes. They had called the anesthesiologist and we were eagerly awaiting his appearance in my room. Alright, _I _was eagerly awaiting the guy's arrival.

Speaking of eagerly awaiting an arrival, I couldn't wait for Esme to get here. I loved my own mom and called her as soon as I was admitted and the doctor had left the room. She and Phil were going to be on the first flight to Washington they could get tomorrow. But Esme had been my rock through the pregnancy.

I didn't have to wait long for Esme. She waltzed right into the room and hugged me. Then she hugged her son. She sent Edward down the hall to get me some ice and the two of them some coffee, saying that it was going to be a long night for all of us. As soon as Edward was gone the anesthesiologist came in and Esme held me while the doctor inserted that needle into my spine. That is when it hit me that Esme had gotten Edward out of the room on purpose. The needle going in hurt like a bitch and Esme knew that it would. She also knew, from experience, that one wrong move and the doctor would end up paralyzing me.

As soon as she made sure that I was comfortable and didn't need anything, she pulled a blanket and a book out of her bag and curled up in the chair by the window. I loved Edward and needed him here with me, but I was relieved to have Esme here to help me too.

Once the epidural kicked in I was able to relax and doze off a bit. I was in and out of consciousness all night long. There were times that, I guess, the nurse examined me and I slept right through it. That was a good thing since they said that I probably wouldn't deliver until morning anyway.

A couple of times when I woke up I could hear Esme trying to get Edward to attempt to get some sleep, but he kept telling her that he was too keyed up to sleep. I think that he was just getting on her nerves.

EsmePOV:

This is one of my favorite parts of being a grandmother. I loved being here when they came into our lives. My children had given me plenty of grandchildren already but I was always thrilled to have more. I even considered Tanya and Felix's Maddie to be another one of my grandchildren. I was trying to get her to call me Nana like the other kids did. She wasn't really all that verbal yet but I know that we'll get there eventually.

I left Carlisle at home watching all the grandchildren that we had staying at our house overnight. It was a good thing that Ethan was already with us so they hadn't needed to wake him, but I'd already had a long evening with a houseful of hyper children; the last thing that I needed or wanted to deal with right now was a hyper child in his thirties. I knew that he was excited and nervous about Bella being in labor but Edward was driving me crazy. He kept pacing and rambling. First he'd be by the window and then he'd be over by the bed Bella was sleeping in, back and forth, and back and forth. I was close to calling the nurse to have Edward sedated.

I was glad that Bella was able to get some sleep. It was not easy to deliver one baby but two, back to back? She was going to need all the rest and strength that she could get when it came time for the main event.

Carlisle was going to bring the kids up to the hospital after he got everybody breakfast. Knowing my husband, that would either be cold cereal or taking them out to some diner. I was hoping for the latter. I was going to be exhausted myself by the time I finally got home and I really did not want to have to clean up a mess in my kitchen.

It was close to eight in the morning when Bella's contractions were getting so intense that they were piercing through the epidural and she was ready to start pushing. Now the both of them were utterly terrified of the next step, so much so that it almost made me laugh.

Luckily, Bella had a relatively easy delivery. Well, I could say that it was easy but I am sure that she would see things quite differently from her side of the story. She was so strong and did beautifully. And she did it with a hell of a lot more grace than my daughters had. Alice cried and begged for a C-section to make the pain go away, and Rose tried to castrate Emmett using her hands. She always did have a bit of a vicious side to her.

At almost ten, both babies were finally here, all red, blotchy, and screaming their heads off. I excused myself to go down the hall to tell everyone and to get Ethan and bring him back. He was so excited about becoming a big brother again. He had actually helped Edward and Bella name his new baby brother and sister; James Hunter and Victoria Rose.

A/N:

OK. Happy Saturday! I will admit that I almost forgot to post this. I was lying in bed with my computer already packed away for my trip when it hit me that I had a chapter to post! *face palms* We leave in seven hours so I need to get a little shut eye.

Thanks to SweetPea123 for betaing this for me. I appreciate it greatly. This is it for this story except for the epi that I have not started yet. I will when I get back and will post as soon as I can.

Anyone here watch the college world series? I live in Omaha and can see the new stadium from my desk at work but I am leaving for vaca just when its starting. Weird, I know.


	22. Chapter 22

ASL Epilogue

Fate

I sighed as I looked out at the backyard. In my mind, I could still see the kids running around the yard, screaming and just being kids. I missed having kids around. There was a part of me that was not ready for today. I had to fully admit that my son was an adult and by the end of the day he would be married. I heard Bella walk into the room and felt her come up behind me and wrap her arms around my waist.

"You know, maybe there will be more kids running around the yard again soon."

"That's not funny. I'm not even fifty yet. I'm not ready to be a grandpa."

She slipped around to the front of me, "That wasn't quite what I had in mind."

I looked at her in confusion. I had absolutely no idea what she was getting at. She just smiled at me. "I saw my doctor yesterday. I'm not going through the change yet."

"But I thought that you had all the symptoms, including not having your period anymore. If you aren't going through the change then what…" That is when it hit me. She was pregnant. My beautiful wife was giving me another child. I just smiled and grabbed her into a big hug and kissed her.

Three hours later I was standing at the church attempting to calm Ethan down as he paced around. The day was already going better than we could have hoped. Even the weather was cooperating with the sun coming out. The ceremony was set to start in ten minutes and I had just heard from Tanya that the bride was most definitely on her way. Ethan visibly calmed after I passed on his mother's message. James was fidgeting in his tux on the other side of the room. He and Victoria had just turned sixteen and I wasn't happy that they were now driving and dating. I hated that Victoria had a boyfriend now. I found out by accident that Bella had put her on birth control and I wanted to hit the roof. I was eternally grateful that I had to leave for work before Bella had come home because Jane talked me down before I started a fight with Bella that would have me sleeping on the couch for a few days. Been there, done that, don't want to repeat the experience. At all. I chose to believe that Bella had put her on the pill to regulate her periods and not that she was having sex.

Before we knew it, it was time for the ceremony to begin. Tanya and Felix and Bella and I walked up the aisle at the same time and took our seats together. Over the years, I saw through customers at the bar, how divorces split families in the worst ways and made it impossible for parents that had once been happy and loved each other become the worst of enemies. I was glad that had not been the case with Tanya and I. We were able to not only be the best parents that we could be for Ethan, but we were also close friends and confidantes.

After we were seated, Ethan escorted both of his grandmothers up the aisle and then took his place at the altar. Ethan and Catherine tried to keep everything simple and small but that was never really possible. I'd also seen many parents over the years come into the bar to drink away the stress of have a child planning a wedding. I was proud of Ethan for choosing James to be his best man. The two weren't that close and I knew that Ethan could have easily chosen his best friend, Eric, but he didn't. James may have complained about having to wear the tux, but he also confided in me that he never thought that his brother would have asked him to stand up with him but was thrilled that he did. Victoria and Maddie were both bridesmaids while Catherine chose her own sister to be maid of honor.

Bella wrapped her arms around my waist and I kissed her on the forehead as we watched them exchanging vows. We decided that we weren't going to tell anyone about the new baby just yet. We had always wanted to have more kids after the twins were born but it never quite worked out for us until now. Bella had gotten pregnant twice after the twins but had lost both babies to miscarriage. Tanya was amazingly supportive when she heard and came to talk to Bella. She said that she knew from experience what it was like to lose a baby. It was devastating to find out that it happened because of the stress she was under following my accident. I asked her why she never told me about it and she said that she honestly couldn't find an appropriate time to bring it up, and then it became an issue of the only reason to bring it up was to hurt me, so she just kept it to herself.

The ceremony seemed to morph into the reception without me even realizing that it was happening. We spent a wonderful evening surrounded by friends and family; eating, laughing, and having the time of our lives. I was walking around the dance floor and took in the various members of our family and thought about how far we had all come.

Tanya was one of the strongest women that I had ever met. It took her years of fighting the cancer to finally beat it, but she did. There were a few points that we were all sure that we were going to lose her. There were times that we sat vigil in the hospital waiting to hear the worst scenario had come true, but each time she fought her way back to us and had been in remission for twelve years now. It was a year after she went into remission that she and Felix snuck off to Vegas and got married. There were a lot of people that were angry that no one was invited, but it was what they both wanted and therefore I couldn't be anything but happy for them.

Seth showed Angela that love was worth the risk and they were married two years after the twins were born. Seth also adopted Mia on that day. They were a happy family and from what I know, Ben had never bothered to contact his own daughter. His daughter that had always called another man daddy.

Emmett and Rose had moved to Forks ten years ago when his dad had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Emmett was not the type of man to leave his mother to deal with everything on her own. We decided that the time had been right to open up a second bar in Forks for Emmett to run. I still remember the day that we were interviewing for a bartender/assistant manager to help Emmett out when he needed to be with his family and Charlie walked in with his resume in hand. It's a no-brainer that we hired him on the spot. First of all, there was no one that we were going to be able to trust more to take care of things in our absence than my father-in-law. And two, the beloved retired chief of police? Talk about a surefire customer draw.

Jane still worked with me at the Seattle location. I stood by her side the day that she and Heidi were able to legally marry in the state of Washington. We had all carried petitions to get the legislation on the ballot and helped to get the vote out to legalize same sex marriage. A year after that Heidi gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Alec. They used Jane's eggs and had the embryos implanted into Heidi, so they were both a part of the baby and the pregnancy.

I continued to walk around the dance floor until I caught sight of Jasper and Alice sitting quietly with Maria and her husband Peter. Maria had found a home with Alice and Jasper that she loved, and when her mother came back to the states, decided that she wanted to stay. So Alice and Jasper became her legal guardians. Maria was also very pregnant with her first child and she looked like she was about to pop at any minute.

The night wore on with more dancing and more food and drinks and before we knew it, it was time for the newlyweds to leave for their honeymoon. Tanya, Felix, Bella, and I had gone in together to give them a three week stay in the Caribbean. They were going to need the time to rest and relax as they would both be starting medical school in the fall at Columbia. Ethan had decided years ago to go into the field of oncology. What he wanted most of all was to research new treatments to increase survival rates. We were all extremely proud of him.

They had only been gone for about ten minutes when I heard a scream come from the dance floor. I looked over to see Jasper holding a doubled over Maria, and Alice and Peter running for them. I guess that I was right about her being ready to pop.

The four of them left for the hospital in one of the limos since the only one of them that had not been drinking was Maria, and she was in no shape to drive either. Mom and Dad followed behind them in a second limo. Bella and I decided that we would go tomorrow, after everything was said and done.

I grabbed my wife and dragged her out onto the dance floor and held her close to me as we swayed to the music. In the last twenty years I had never been able to regain any of the memories that I had lost due to the accident. There were things that would give me a sense of déjà vu, but that was as far as it would go. I hated not being able to recall things from my life first hand, but I was eternally grateful for what I was given more than I resented what I had lost. I was given an opportunity to make new memories. That was something that I had learned that not everyone got. I was given the rare gift of a second life.

A/N:

First and Foremost, I would like to thank Sweetpea123 for all the hard work she put in betaing this story, fixing my mistakes and making sure that everything made sense.

Second, I would like to thank those who reviewed and let you know that you saved Tanya's life. I was set to kill her off but changed my plans. I just couldn't do it.

Thank you to all that stayed with this story. I know that all of people don't like seeing Edward or Bella with anyone else but I really appreciate your faith that I would get them together and all would be well.

I have a lot more stories in my head that I want to get out. There is a canon one-shot that I am working on and then an all-human story that's been in my head for a while. And there's the On our Own, the sequel to Living Life that I just started posting. I am not going anywhere anytime soon.


End file.
